Libertarian Representative Ron Paul (R-TX), contemplating a run for the 2008 presidential nomination, discusses the many federal programs, agencies, and bureaus he would eliminate if he had the power. He would do away with the CIA, the Federal Reserve, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the IRS, and the Department of Education, among others. He would eliminate Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. He would abolish the federal income tax (see April 28, 1999). He would zero out federal funding for public education, leaving that to local governments. Paul recently refused to vote for federal funds to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina, explaining that to do so would “rob” other Americans “in order to support the people on the coast.” He routinely votes against federal subsidies for farmers. He supports absolute gun rights, and absolutely opposes abortion, though he thinks regulations supporting or denying abortion should be left up to the states. He wants to repeal federal laws regulating drugs and allow prohibited drugs such as heroin to be sold legally. Paul says the US should withdraw from the United Nations and NATO, and wants the country to stop giving foreign aid to any country for any reason, calling such assistance “foreign welfare.” He even says President Lincoln should never have taken the nation to war to abolish slavery. Referring to the years before the income tax, Paul says: “We had a good run from 1776 to 1913. We didn’t have it; we did pretty well.” As for Social Security, “we didn’t have it until 1935,” Paul says. “I mean, do you read stories about how many people were laying in the streets and dying and didn’t have medical treatment?… Prices were low and the country was productive and families took care of themselves and churches built hospitals and there was no starvation.” Historian Michael Katz describes himself as aghast at Paul’s characterization of American life before Social Security. “Where to begin with this one?” he asks. “The stories just break your heart, the kind of suffering that people endured.… Stories of families that had literally no cash and had to kind of beg to get the most minimal forms of food, who lived in tiny, little rooms that were ill-heated and ill-ventilated, who were sick all the time, who had meager clothing.” Charles Kuffner of the Texas progressive blog Off the Kuff writes, “I can only presume that the Great Depression never occurred in whatever universe Paul inhabits.” [Washington Post, 7/9/2006; Charles Kuffner, 7/10/2006]

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) releases documents that show the Defense Department ignored requests from senior military commanders for clarification regarding interrogation tactics. In January 2003, military commanders in Afghanistan requested clarification from Pentagon officials as to what interrogation methods could be used against prisoners in US custody. Those officials ignored the request (see January 2003). “It is the Defense Department’s responsibility to ensure that prisoners are treated humanely, as the Geneva Conventions require,” says ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer. “But as these documents show, the Defense Department allowed abusive interrogation practices to flourish.” The documents also show that at least one unit in Afghanistan operated for eight months under rules of interrogation that had been rescinded (see May 2004). In other instances, field and unit commanders came up with their own rules for interrogation. One commander at Guantanamo came up with his own definition of sleep deprivation, according to the documents: “I define ‘sleep deprivation’ as keeping a detainee awake continuously for five or six day’s [sic] straight.” Another unit determined that, if soldiers could be subjected to 20-hour days in training, it should be acceptable to subject prisoners to similar conditions: “If it was okay to subject our soldiers to twenty-hour days, then in our mind’s [sic] it was okay to subject the terrorists to twenty-hour interrogations.” In one instance, a detainee was interrogated for 20 hours every day for almost two months. “These documents further confirm that systemic command failures led to the widespread abuse of detainees held in US custody abroad,” says the ACLU’s Amrit Singh. “Only an independent investigation into detainee abuse can be trusted to hold relevant officials accountable for such failures.” [American Civil Liberties Union, 7/10/2006]

Progressive media watchdog organization Media Matters writes that Robert Novak, the conservative columnist who outed Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA agent (see July 14, 2003), has, in writing about his interactions with the federal agents investigating the leak (see July 12, 2006), “repeated a number of false and contradictory statements regarding the investigation and the manner in which he learned of Plame [Wilson]‘s identity.” Novak did reveal White House political strategist Karl Rove as one of his sources, but did not reveal his “primary source,” then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage (see July 8, 2003). [Media Matters, 7/12/2006] Author Marcy Wheeler, who blogs at The Next Hurrah under the moniker “Emptywheel,” concurs, and cites similar instances of Novak’s contradictory statements. [Marcy Wheeler, 7/13/2006]Contradicts Earlier Statements - Novak does not reveal Armitage’s name, but he does discuss something of the Armitage disclosure, saying that Armitage’s revelation was “inadvertent.” Though this coincides with other Novak discussions, where he has called Armitage’s discussion of Plame Wilson “offhand” (see September 29, 2003 and October 1, 2003), it contradicts information he gave to two Newsday reporters in the days following his column’s publication: at that time, he told the reporters that he “was given” the Plame Wilson information and his sources—Rove and Armitage—considered the information “significant” (see July 21, 2003). Misrepresents Plame Wilson's Involvement in Husband's Mission - Novak also repeats the falsehood that Plame Wilson “helped initiate” her husband, Joseph Wilson’s, 2002 trip to Niger (see February 19, 2002, July 22, 2003, and October 17, 2003), a falsehood he claims has been “confirmed” by a 2004 Senate Intelligence Committee report (see July 9, 2004). And two years previously, Novak admitted that the committee failed to reach a conclusion on Plame Wilson’s involvement in the Niger mission (see July 15, 2004). [Media Matters, 7/12/2006]Story Substantially Different from Rove's - Wheeler points out that Novak’s version of events is substantially different from the events Rove has laid out. According to Novak, Rove already knew Plame Wilson’s name; Rove says he neither knew the name nor divulged it to Novak. Novak says Rove called him, but Rove says Novak placed the call. According to Rove, when Novak asked about Joseph Wilson’s wife being a CIA official, he replied, “Oh, you’ve heard that too,” but Novak suggests Rove said something more. Novak also contradicts his earlier reporting, where he implied he confirmed (not learned) Plame Wilson’s identity from Who’s Who in America (see October 1, 2003). Moreover, Novak told reporters in 2003 that White House officials gave him the information on Plame Wilson, “I didn’t dig it out” (see July 21, 2003), implying that he was called by Rove and perhaps other White House officials as well. In his October 1, 2003 article, he wrote that he called Rove (whom he identified then as “another official”). [Marcy Wheeler, 7/13/2006] On Fox News, Novak says that the original reporting that he “was given” the information on Plame Wilson was “a misstatement.” He goes on: “That was an interview I did on the telephone with Newsday shortly after it appeared. Some of the things that they said that quoted me that are not in quotes are paraphrases, and they’re incorrect, such as the whole idea that they [the White House] planted this story with me. I never told that to the Newsday reporters.” [Christy Hardin Smith, 7/13/2006]Contradicts CIA Official's Account of Interview - Media Matters also notes that Novak’s account of his discussion of Plame Wilson’s identity with then-CIA spokesman Bill Harlow is substantially different from Harlow’s account (see (July 11, 2003). Harlow has said, both in interviews and in grand jury testimony, that he warned Novak not to divulge Plame Wilson’s name or CIA status in the strongest terms he could without himself divulging classified information. [Media Matters, 7/12/2006]

Karl Rove and Robert Novak, 2003. Rove’s button reads, ‘I’m a Source, Not a Target.’ [Source: Lauren Shays / AP / New York Times]Conservative columnist Robert Novak, who outed Valerie Plame Wilson’s covert CIA status in a column three years earlier (see July 14, 2003), says that he can now write about his testimony before the grand jury investigating the leak. In his current column, he reveals that White House political strategist Karl Rove was one of his sources, as was CIA spokesman Bill Harlow. Novak writes that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has informed his attorneys that the “investigation of the CIA leak case concerning matters directly relating to me has been concluded. That frees me to reveal my role in the federal inquiry that, at the request of Fitzgerald, I have kept secret.” Novak writes: “I have cooperated in the investigation while trying to protect journalistic privileges under the First Amendment and shield sources who have not revealed themselves. I have been subpoenaed by and testified to a federal grand jury. Published reports that I took the Fifth Amendment, made a plea bargain with the prosecutors, or was a prosecutorial target were all untrue.” Novak says that Fitzgerald knew, “independent of me,” that his sources for his column outing Plame Wilson were Rove and then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage (see July 8, 2003), whom Novak does not identify in his column. “That Fitzgerald did not indict any of these sources may indicate his conclusion that none of them violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act,” Novak writes. Novak also identifies a third source, Harlow (see (July 11, 2003) and Before July 14, 2003). Novak writes that he reveals Rove as a source “because his attorney has divulged the substance of our conversation, though in a form different from my recollection.” Harlow, Novak writes, “has publicly disclosed his version of our conversation, which also differs from my recollection.” He does not name Armitage because Armitage “has not come forward to identify himself,” though he does note that Armitage considered his disclosure of Plame Wilson’s CIA identity “inadvertent.” After learning of Plame Wilson’s identity from Armitage, Novak writes, “I sought out the second administration official [Rove] and the CIA spokesman [Harlow] for confirmation. I learned Valerie Plame [Wilson]‘s name from Joe Wilson’s entry in Who’s Who in America. I considered his wife’s role in initiating Wilson’s mission, later confirmed by the Senate Intelligence Committee, to be a previously undisclosed part of an important news story. I reported it on that basis.” [CNN, 7/11/2006; Human Events, 7/12/2006; New York Times, 7/12/2006] Novak also says of Armitage: “The primary source was not a political operative.… I don’t believe it was part of a plan to discredit anybody.” Novak denies cooperating with a White House strategy to discredit former ambassador Joseph Wilson, a prominent critic of the Bush administration’s Iraq policies (see June 2003, October 1, 2003, and April 5, 2006). [Washington Post, 7/11/2006] Novak testified that when he asked about Plame Wilson’s CIA status, Rove replied, “Oh, you know that, too?” In Rove’s recollection, he responded, “I’ve heard that, too.” Rove’s spokesman, Mark Corallo, says that Rove did not even know Plame Wilson’s name at the time he spoke with Novak, that the columnist called Rove, not the other way around, and that Rove simply replied he had heard the same information that Novak passed along to him regarding Plame Wilson. However, “There was not much of a difference” between the recollections of Rove and Novak, Corallo says. Harlow’s difference with Novak’s portrayal of their conversation is more substantial than the differences between Novak’s and Rove’s recollections. Harlow has said that he warned Novak not to reveal Plame Wilson’s name or CIA status, but Novak has written, “I certainly wouldn’t have used her name if anyone [i.e. Harlow] had indicated she might be in danger.” [Washington Post, 7/11/2006; Associated Press, 7/12/2006] A former intelligence official tells CNN that when Harlow first spoke to Novak about Plame Wilson, he was not aware of her status as a covert employee, and that he tried to talk Novak out of publishing her name when he did find out, making it clear the disclosure could be damaging. [CNN, 7/11/2006] Progressive media watchdog organization Media Matters writes that Novak’s column is filled with “false and contradictory statements” (see July 12, 2006).

Responding to columnist Robert Novak’s disclosure that White House political strategist Karl Rove was one of his sources in the Plame Wilson identity leak (see July 12, 2006), Mary Matalin, the former media adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, launches an attack against the prosecutors investigating the leak on Fox News. Matalin says that neither Lewis Libby, the former White House official charged with perjury and obstruction in the investigation (see October 28, 2005), nor anyone else committed a crime—even going so far as to claim that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald acknowledged that no one committed a crime—and former ambassador Joseph Wilson “flat-out lied” in his July 2003 op-ed debunking the Iraq-Niger uranium claim (see July 6, 2003). Fitzgerald repeatedly asserted the serious nature of Libby’s crimes in Libby’s indictment, noting that Libby both lied and obstructed justice in his dealings with the FBI and with Fitzgerald’s grand jury. Moreover, Matalin’s claim that Wilson was “lying” is countered by numerous findings that the Iraq-Niger claims were absolutely false (see Between Late 2000 and September 11, 2001, Late September 2001-Early October 2001, October 15, 2001, December 2001, February 5, 2002, February 12, 2002, October 9, 2002, October 15, 2002, January 2003, February 17, 2003, March 7, 2003, March 8, 2003, and 3:09 p.m. July 11, 2003), including a July 2004 Senate Intelligence Committee report on prewar intelligence (see July 9, 2004). Matalin goes on to say that “everybody in town knew” that Valerie Plame Wilson was a CIA agent, an assertion again debunked by Fitzgerald in his indictment. [Media Matters, 7/12/2006]

MSNBC talk show host Tucker Carlson tells his viewers that “[t]here’s never been a shred of evidence” that the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson’s covert identity (see Fall 1992 - 1996) “compromised our national security.” Carlson is misrepresenting the issue. CIA official Bill Harlow twice warned columnist Robert Novak not to divulge Plame Wilson’s name or CIA identity to the public (see (July 11, 2003) and Before July 14, 2003). Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald found that Plame Wilson’s identity had been protected by the CIA “not just for the officer, but for the nation’s security” (see October 28, 2005). And a number of former and current CIA officers and agents have said that the disclosure of her identity and her front company, Brewster Jennings, likely endangered others, both CIA agents and foreign sources (see October 3, 2003, October 11, 2003, October 22-24, 2003, and October 23-24, 2003). Carlson is commenting on Novak’s July 12 column, where he discusses his testimony in Fitzgerald’s investigation and discloses that White House political strategist Karl Rove was one of his sources for his Plame Wilson column (see July 12, 2006). [Media Matters, 7/13/2006]

Former ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose wife Valerie Plame Wilson was exposed as a CIA agent by columnist Robert Novak (see July 14, 2003), writes an e-mail to Christy Hardin Smith, a former prosecutor who writes for the progressive blog FireDogLake. Referring to Novak’s recent column (see July 12, 2006) and its falsehoods and misrepresentations (see July 12, 2006), Wilson writes: “Robert Novak, some other commentators, and the administration continue to try to completely distort the role that Valerie Wilson played with respect to Ambassador Wilson’s trip to Niger. The facts are beyond dispute. The Office of the Vice President requested that the CIA investigate reports of alleged uranium purchases by Iraq from Niger (see (February 13, 2002)). The CIA set up a meeting to respond to the vice president’s inquiry (see Shortly after February 13, 2002). Another CIA official, not Valerie Wilson, suggested to Valerie Wilson’s supervisor that the ambassador attend that meeting (see February 19, 2002). That other CIA official made the recommendation because that official was familiar with the ambassador’s vast experience in Niger and knew of a previous trip to Africa concerning uranium matters that had been undertaken by the ambassador on behalf of the CIA in 1999 (see Fall 1999). Valerie Wilson’s supervisor subsequently asked her to relay a request from him to the ambassador that he would like the ambassador to attend the meeting at the CIA. Valerie Wilson did not participate in the meeting” (see February 13, 2002). [Christy Hardin Smith, 7/13/2006]

Valerie Plame Wilson, the former CIA agent whose undercover status was blown by a White House leak of her identity (see July 14, 2003), sues Vice President Dick Cheney, White House aide Karl Rove, and former White House aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby. Plame Wilson accuses them and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy her career as a CIA operative as well as conspiring to besmirch the reputation and integrity of her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who is also part of the lawsuit. The suit does not specify monetary damages to be assessed. [Associated Press, 7/13/2006; New York Times, 7/14/2006; Washington Post, 7/3/2007] The Wilsons will later add former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage (see June 13, 2003 and July 8, 2003) to the suit. [Associated Press, 5/17/2007]Alleges Constitutional, Civil Rights Violations - The lawsuit claims that Cheney, Rove, Libby, and 10 yet-to-be-named government officials—named “John Does 1-10” in the lawsuit—violated the Wilsons’ First Amendment rights to free speech, their Fifth Amendment rights to equal protection under the law, and their right to privacy and property. The suit alleges that the defendants conspired to deprive the Wilsons of their civil rights, as well as charging the defendants with neglecting to prevent civil rights violations, public disclosure of private facts, and civil conspiracy. (The “John Doe” defendants will be included when the Wilsons learn who else was involved.) The Wilsons file their lawsuit one day before the statute of limitations would have expired on any such lawsuit. In 2007, Plame Wilson will write that her husband had talked of such a lawsuit since her outing in 2003, but she had consistently avoided the idea. “I got angry, defensive, and emotional,” she will recall. “I didn’t want to talk about it; the leak was still too raw for me and I wasn’t ready yet to think rationally through what such an action would mean.” But when Plame Wilson began to come to terms with the ramifications of the leak to her personal and professional life, she “began to tally up the costs of the campaign to smear Joe and to out me carelessly: the near destruction of Joe’s reputation and his consulting business, the end of my career, the wholesale invasion of our privacy, threats to our physical security, the chronic level of stress that had adversely affected our health in myriad ways, and two small children wondering why their parents were fighting again. A lawsuit couldn’t completely remedy the situation, but to me, it began to look more appealing.” [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 7/13/2006 ; New York Times, 7/14/2006; Wilson, 2007, pp. 252-254]Trying to Accomplish Three Things in Lawsuit - In discussing the idea, the Wilsons decided that the lawsuit could possibly accomplish three things: Finding the truth behind what Plame Wilson calls “the erroneous 16 words about the uranium from Niger” and how they made it into President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech (see Mid-January 2003 and 9:01 pm January 28, 2003); Holding “government officials accountable for actions that might be illegal or unconstitutional”; and Serving “as a deterrent to future public servants who might think they are above the law.” [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 7/13/2006 ; Wilson, 2007, pp. 252-254]Rove: Allegations 'without Merit' - Rove spokesman Mark Corallo says, “Without even having had a chance to review the complaint, it is clear that the allegations are absolutely and utterly without merit.” [Associated Press, 7/13/2006] Rove’s lawyer Robert Luskin gives a similar statement to the press: “The allegations are without merit. We may comment further when we have an opportunity to review the complaint.” [New York Times, 7/14/2006]'Exposing Administration Wrongdoing' - With the continuing attempts from the White House and conservative elements in the media to downplay and/or rewrite the history of the leak (see July 13, 2006), Plame Wilson will write, “Our civil suit seemed to be the only means by which we could expose the administration’s wrongdoing.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 252-254]Problems with Lawsuit - The lawsuit will face difficulties in bringing the law to bear against Cheney and Rove. The basis for suing federal officials is a 1982 Supreme Court case that says federal officials may be sued for violating someone’s constitutional rights if a reasonable person would believe they had violated “clearly established law.” The Libby investigation has not yet produced solid evidence that there was a deliberate, illegal effort to leak Plame Wilson’s identity. [New York Times, 7/14/2006]

The US House of Representatives overcomes challenges by conservative Republicans and votes overwhelmingly in favor of renewing the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA—see August 6, 1965 and June 29, 1989). Congressional Republicans originally voiced strong support for renewing the landmark voting rights legislation (see October 4, 2005) but some 80 House Republicans have worked for weeks to block renewal of the bill over objections to providing bilingual ballots in some areas, and over continued oversight by the Justice Department in areas with a history of racial disenfranchisement and discrimination at the voting booth (see June 22, 2006). The renewal bill, officially entitled the “Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act” after a number of prominent civil rights figures, passes the House on a 390-33 vote. Representative John Lewis (D-GA), an African-American veteran who was beaten by white police officers during the civil rights struggle, gives an impassioned speech on the House floor before the vote is cast. Lewis reminds the House that “I gave blood” to ensure that blacks and other minorities had the right to vote without discrimination. “Some of my colleagues gave their very lives. Yes, we’ve made some progress; we have come a distance. The sad truth is, discrimination still exists. That’s why we still need the Voting Rights Act, and we must not go back to the dark past.” Lewis and other supporters took part in over a dozen House hearings where, according to Lewis, proof of voter discrimination was highlighted. Some conservative lawmakers have argued that such discrimination is a thing of the past, and therefore the VRA is obsolete and need not be renewed. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) is one of those making that argument, telling the House: “A lot has changed in 40-plus years. We should have a law that fits the world in 2006.” Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) agrees: “Congress is declaring from on high that states with voting problems 40 years ago can simply never be forgiven. That Georgians must eternally wear the scarlet letter because of the actions of their grandparents and great-grandparents.… We have repented and we have reformed.” Westmoreland says many people are “prejudiced” against Southern states. David Scott (D-GA) accuses House Republicans such as Gingrey and Westmoreland of working “to kill the Voting Rights Act” both through opposition and through the attempted addition of a number of unpalatable amendments that would strongly water down the law, such as an amendment by Steve King (R-IA) that would have removed the provision for bilingual ballots and forced naturalized citizens to prove their fluency in English before being allowed to vote. The bill moves to the Senate, where Democrats are urging quick passage and accusing House Republicans of unjustly delaying the bill’s passage. “For two months, we have wasted precious time as the Republican leadership played to its conservative base,” says Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). “There are only 21 legislative days left in this Congress, and the time to act is now.” [New York Times, 7/13/2006; Associated Press, 7/14/2006]

The day after Joseph Wilson and his wife, outed CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, file a lawsuit against White House officials over the conspiracy to smear Wilson’s character and expose Plame Wilson as a covert intelligence agent (see July 13, 2006), Plame Wilson speaks about the affair to reporters for the first time. She will later describe herself as suffering from a “dry mouth and shaking knees” as she speaks. She tells reporters in part: “I am proud to have served my country by working at the Central Intelligence Agency. I and my former CIA colleagues trusted our government to protect us as we did our jobs. That a few reckless individuals within the current administration betrayed that trust has been a grave disappointment to every patriotic American; Joe and I have filed this action with a heavy heart but with renewed purpose. I feel strongly that those who acted so recklessly, and who acted in such a harmful way, need to answer for their shameful conduct and to explain their actions in a court of law.” Wilson also releases a statement to the press, which says in part: “[T]his remains a nation of laws. No administration official however powerful is above the law and I have confidence in the American system of justice. This suit is about the pursuit of justice.” [Buzzflash (.com), 7/14/2006; Wilson, 2007, pp. 254-255]

Former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, former CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, have their 2004 tax returns audited by the IRS. Their accountant informs them that there was nothing in their returns that would have triggered an audit. In 2007, Plame Wilson will write: “I am not conspiratorially minded, but after talking to [our accountant] I really had dark thoughts about Nixonian ‘enemies lists’ (see June 27, 1973). Didn’t [former President] Nixon use the power of his office to unleash IRS audits on those he deemed to be his enemies (see August 9, 1972 and March 12, 1974)?… My concerns that we were the targets of yet another political attack were strengthened several months later when we learned that a journalist friend of ours had been also singled out for an audit. He had just published a book highly critical of the Bush administration and it felt like payback. But, then again, maybe the audits were just a strange coincidence.” The Wilsons’ audit turns up nothing. [Wilson, 2007, pp. 250-251]

Conservative columnist Byron York asserts that former CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, have filed a lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney, White House aide Karl Rove, and former White House aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby for monetary gain (see July 13, 2006). Without substantiating his accusations, York writes that Plame Wilson is using the lawsuit to heighten interest in her forthcoming book on her CIA career (see October 22, 2007), while Wilson is using the lawsuit to spur interest in his (presumably paid) speaking engagements. Both want to, in York’s words, “keep interest in the flagging CIA leak case alive.” [The Hill, 7/20/2006]

The US Senate votes 98-0 to reauthorize the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA—see August 6, 1965 and June 29, 1989). Many Republicans in the House have attempted to thwart the law’s renewal, citing their opposition to providing bilingual ballots in some areas, and over continued oversight by the Justice Department in areas with a history of racial disenfranchisement and discrimination at the voting booth (see June 22, 2006). However, that opposition was overcome by a bipartisan effort when the House voted to reauthorize the law (see July 13, 2006). Democrats and Republicans alike acknowledge that racial discrimination and efforts to disenfranchise minority voters still exist: “Despite the progress [some] states have made in upholding the right to vote, it is clear the problems still exist,” says Senator Barack Obama (D-IL). On the same day that the Senate votes to approve the bill, President Bush, on a visit to the annual NAACP convention, promises to sign the bill into law. One senator voicing his objection to the bill is Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), who says: “Other states with much less impressive minority progress and less impressive minority participation are not covered, while Georgia still is. This seems both unfair as well as unwise.” Chambliss is not joined in his opposition by fellow Republican Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), whose home state of South Carolina is, like Georgia, subject to Justice Department oversight for any changes to its voting procedures. “South Carolinians, you have come a long way,” he says. But we, just like every other part of this country, still have a long way to go.” [New York Times, 7/21/2006]

President Bush signs the Voting Rights Act (VRA—see August 6, 1965 and June 29, 1989) reauthorization into law. The extension, called the “Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act,” makes the VRA the law until 2031. It also overturns the decision rendered in Reno v. Bossier Parish School Board (see May 12, 1997) by outlawing electoral redistricting for discriminatory purposes, and invalidates the decision rendered in Georgia v. Ashcroft by declaring that Section 5 protects the ability of minorities “to elect their preferred candidates of choice.” [MSNBC, 10/4/2005; White House, 6/27/2006; American Civil Liberties Union, 2012] In October 2005, Congressional Republicans declared that they intended to lead the way towards renewing the VRA, particularly Section 5 (see October 4, 2005). But in June 2006, House Republicans balked at renewing Section 5 and another provision mandating bilingual ballots in many areas (see June 22, 2006). The bill survived a number of attempts to derail or weaken it by those House Republicans (see July 13, 2006), and was upheld 98-0 in the Senate (see July 20, 2006).

Following up on the Supreme Court’s recent Hamdan ruling that the Bush administration’s military commissions trial system is illegal (see June 30, 2006), a dozen members of the Judge Advocate General (JAG) corps meets with a team of White House lawyers. The JAG officers are experts in military law; much of their training centers on how to best conduct their legal proceedings in line with the Geneva Conventions. Most JAG officers had opposed the Bush administration’s decision to ignore Geneva (see June 8, 2004) in its treatment of detainees; in return, the White House’s civilian lawyers had dismissed the JAG officers as, in author and reporter Charlie Savage’s words, “closed minded, parochial, and simplistic.” The JAGs view the Hamdan ruling as vindication of their objections; for its part, the Justice Department is eager to be able to say that it incorporated the JAGs’ views in its proposed legislation for a new system of detainee trials. The JAGs’ overriding concern is to ensure that no secret evidence can be used against detainees in future trials. Defendants must be able to see and respond to all evidence used against them, the JAGs believe, otherwise the trials are not in compliance with Geneva. The original military commissions required that defendants and their lawyers be removed from the courtroom when classified evidence was introduced, a practice that the military lawyers believe was a basic violation of defendant rights. Unfortunately for the JAGs, they quickly learn that the White House lawyers are uninterested in their views. When they take their seats in a Justice Department conference room, the White House lawyers inform them that there is no reason to discuss the secret evidence question, because more senior officials will ultimately make that decision. Instead, the JAGs are limited to discussing minor technical issues and typographical changes. The meeting does allow Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to testify to Congress in early August that “our deliberations have included detailed discussions with members of the JAG corps,” whose “multiple rounds of comments… will be reflected in the legislative package.” Unlike the White House lawyers, Congress will listen to the JAG officers, and will outlaw the use of secret evidence in detainee trials. [Savage, 2007, pp. 279-281]

The Pew Center for the People and the Press finds that 34 percent of Republicans consistently watch Fox News, while 20 percent of Democrats do so. These numbers are generally consistent with study results from two years before (see June 8, 2004). [Jamieson and Cappella, 2008, pp. 237]

Former foreign policy adviser Brent Scowcroft, who left the Bush administration after a dispute with neoconservatives (see October 2004), writes an op-ed entitled “Beyond Lebanon,” in which he exhorts the administration to help resolve the crisis in Lebanon. Israel is currently locked in a bloody, debilitating struggle with Hezbollah. Scowcroft writes that a peaceful resolution of that conflict will not only help bring about a peaceful end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but could help stabilize Iraq as well. He writes: “The current crisis in Lebanon provides a historic opportunity to achieve what has seemed impossible. That said, it is too much to expect those most directly implicated—Israeli and Palestinian leaders—to lead the way. That responsibility falls to others, principally the United States, which alone can mobilize the international community and Israel and the Arab states for the task that has defeated so many previous efforts.… This latest in a seemingly endless series of conflagrations in the region just may present a unique opportunity to change the situation in the Middle East for the better for all time. Let us not shrink from the task.” Scowcroft’s arguments are ignored by the White House. [Washington Post, 7/30/2006; Unger, 2007, pp. 341]

Lewis Libby’s legal team announces that it intends to call a psychology professor to testify that Libby did not deliberately lie to the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and to the grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004), but merely made misstatements due to memory failure. In a court filing, the lawyers write, “Mr. Libby will show that the snippets of conversation at issue in this case took place amid a rush of pressing national security matters that commanded his attention throughout his long and stressful work day” (see January 31, 2006). The witness is Robert Bjork, a memory expert from UCLA. The lawyers say Bjork will explain that, contrary to what jurors may think, “memory does not function like a tape recorder, with memories recorded, stored, and played back verbatim.” Cornell University professor Ulric Neisser says the so-called “memory defense” that Libby’s team intends to mount may be effective. Referring to Libby’s claim that he learned of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson from a reporter (see 12:00 p.m. June 11, 2003, 2:00 p.m. June 11, 2003, 5:27 p.m. June 11, 2003, (June 12, 2003), and July 10 or 11, 2003), Neisser says, “If everything hinges on who he learned it from first, people do forget that stuff all the time.” [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 7/31/2006 ; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 7/31/2006 ; Associated Press, 8/1/2006; New York Sun, 8/1/2006] Criminal defense lawyer Jeralyn Merritt, following the trial at the progressive blog TalkLeft, calls the use of a memory expert entirely appropriate, but notes: “The expert only should be allowed to explain the principles of memory and memory failure to the jury. He should not be allowed to render an opinion as to whether Libby’s memory failed since that’s the ultimate question for the jury to decide.” [Jeralyn Merritt, 8/1/2006]

Senior British diplomat William Patey, meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair after returning from a tour of Iraq, tells Blair that Iraq is closer to civil war and partition along sectarian lines than it is to democracy. Patey tells Blair in a confidential telegram that “the prospect of a low intensity civil war and a de facto division of Iraq is probably more likely at this stage than a successful and substantial transition to a stable democracy. Even the lowered expectation of President Bush for Iraq—a government that can sustain itself, defend itself, and govern itself, and is an ally in the war on terror—must remain in doubt.” The situation “is not hopeless,” he continues, but for the next decade Iraq will remain “messy and difficult.” Blair will later claim that Patey is merely reiterating Britain’s determination to succeed in bringing about its “vision of the Middle East based on democracy, liberty, and the rule of law.” [BBC, 8/3/2006; New York Times, 8/4/2006] The memo is soon leaked to the BBC. [Independent, 8/4/2006]

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, along with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, and the commander of US forces in the Middle East, General John Abizaid, participate in a sometimes-contentious hearing with the Senate Armed Forces Committee (see August 3, 2006). The three then take part in a closed-door session with some members of Congress. After the two meetings, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) calls on President Bush to accept Rumsfeld’s resignation. [New York Times, 8/4/2006] Rumsfeld will resign three months later (see November 6-December 18, 2006).

General John Abizaid testifies before the Senate Armed Forces Committee. [Source: Washington Note]General John Abizaid, the commander of US forces in the Middle East, tells the Senate Armed Services Committee that sectarian violence in Iraq, especially in and around Baghdad, has grown so severe that the nation may be on the brink of civil war. “A couple of days ago, I returned from the Middle East,” he says. “I’ve rarely seen it so unsettled or so volatile. There’s an obvious struggle in the region between moderates and extremists that touches every aspect of life.” He continues, “I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I’ve seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war.” The New York Times reports that “the tone of the testimony at the Armed Services Committee’s three-and-a-half-hour hearing was strikingly grimmer than the Pentagon’s previous assessments, which have sought to accentuate the positive even as officials acknowledged that Iraq’s government was struggling to assert authority and assure security amid a tide of violence.” [New York Times, 8/4/2006; Washington Post, 8/4/2006]Harsh Criticism of Rumsfeld - Abizaid is joined by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and General Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Rumsfeld had initially refused to attend the hearing, but agreed to attend after Senate Democrats criticized his refusal. Neither Rumsfeld nor Pace contradict Abizaid’s assessments, though Rumsfeld emphasizes that the war must not be lost. Pace notes that while civil war is possible, he does not believe it is “probable,” and Abizaid says he is “optimistic that that slide [into civil war] can be prevented.” Some of the harshest criticism of Rumsfeld comes from committee member Hillary Clinton (D-NY), who tells him that he failed to send enough troops to Iraq in the 2003 invasion “to establish law and order,” he erred by disbanding the Iraqi army, he failed to plan adequately for the occupation phase, and he “underestimated the nature and strength of the insurgency, the sectarian violence, and the spread of Iranian influence.” Now, she says, “we hear a lot of happy talk and rosy scenarios, but because of the administration’s strategic blunders and, frankly, the record of incompetence in executing, you are presiding over a failed policy. Given your track record, Secretary Rumsfeld, why should we believe your assurances now?” Rumsfeld responds, “My goodness,” and then says: “First of all, it’s true, there is sectarian conflict in Iraq, and there is a loss of life. And it’s an unfortunate and tragic thing that that’s taking place. And it is true that there are people who are attempting to prevent that government from being successful. And they are the people who are blowing up buildings and killing innocent men, women and children, and taking off the heads of people on television. And the idea of their prevailing is unacceptable.” Clinton will call for Rumsfeld’s resignation later in the day (see August 3, 2006). [New York Times, 8/4/2006; Washington Post, 8/4/2006]'Whack-a-Mole' - Because of the continued instability in Iraq, Abizaid says, there is little possibility that US troops will be able to return home in any significant numbers before at least the end of the year. Instead, he says, more US troops will be deployed in and around Baghdad to contain the worsening violence in the capital, and warns that the US will undoubtedly suffer serious casualties in that operation. Acknowledging the necessity for US soldiers to stay in Iraq for the immediate future, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) finds the military’s practice of moving those soldiers from one violence-ridden part of Iraq to another little more than playing a game of “whack-a-mole.” McCain says, “What I worry about is we’re playing a game of whack-a-mole here,” with insurgent activity popping up in places that troops have vacated. “Now we’re going to have to move troops into Baghdad from someplace else. It’s very disturbing.” McCain will wholeheartedly endorse the idea of a “surge” of more American troops into Iraq (see January 2007 and January 10, 2007). [New York Times, 8/4/2006; Washington Post, 8/4/2006]

Cover of ‘The Shadow Party.’ [Source: Brazos Bookstore]Authors David Horowitz and Richard Poe publish a book titled The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party, that purports to prove Jewish billionaire George Soros, who finances progressive and Democratic Party causes, is in reality a Nazi collaborator and anti-Semite. However, the book is riddled with doctored quotes, misinformation, factual errors, and outright lies. Progressive media watchdog Web site Media Matters notes that the book relies on long-discredited accusations from the authors’ “Front Page Magazine” Web site, from their articles on conservative Web publications such as WorldNetDaily and NewsMax, and on unsourced allegations from political extremist Lyndon LaRouche and his followers, who have called Soros a “Nazi beast-man” and a “small cog in Adolf Eichmann’s killing machine,” aiding “the Holocaust against 500,000 Hungarian Jews.” Media Matters calls the book “a new low in the long-running Republican Party and conservative movement campaign of scurrilous personal attacks against Soros, a major supporter of progressive causes in the US and abroad.” The organization also notes that the Web sites used in the book’s research are largely funded by conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, and Scaife-owned newspapers such as the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review have promoted the book. Media Matters documents numerous issues of doctored quotes and falsified claims in the book. [Media Matters, 8/2/2006]

The beginning of the month sees the warrantless domestic surveillance program controversy peak. The day after the Connecticut Democratic Senatorial Primary, Vice President Dick Cheney says the victory of challenger Ned Lamont over incumbent Joseph Lieberman is a victory for the “al-Qaeda types.” He says that these people are “clearly betting on the proposition that ultimately they break the will of the American people, in terms of our ability to stay in the fight.” [MSNBC, 6/4/2007] Lamont will ultimately lose to Lieberman (who runs as an independent) in the general election.

Rashid Rauf. [Source: Warrick Page/ Getty Images]British police arrest 24 people in connection with a plot to blow up aircraft flying from Britain to the United States. Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson says the plot was “intended to be mass murder on an unimaginable scale.” [CNN, 8/10/2006] Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff describes the plot as “well-advanced and well-thought-out and… really resourced to succeed.” [MSNBC, 8/10/2006] He also likens it to the foiled 1995 Bojinka plot, one portion of which involved blowing up up to a dozen airplanes over the ocean using liquid explosives smuggled onto the planes. [CNN, 8/11/2006] The British threat warning level is raised to critical and London’s Heathrow Airport is closed to most European flights. US officials say the plot involved hiding liquid explosives in carry-on luggage, and up to 12 flights would have been targeted. A senior US congressional source says the plotters planned to carry sports drinks onto the flights, which would then be mixed with a gel-like substance. The explosives would be triggered by the electrical charge from an iPod or mobile phone. Administration officials say the plot involved British Airways, Continental, United, and American Airlines. The plotters intended to detonate the devices over New York, Washington, San Francisco, Boston, and Los Angeles. Officials say the plot demonstrates “very strong links to al-Qaeda” and was nearly operational. In the US, the Department of Homeland Security raises the terror threat to the highest level, red, meaning “severe,” for commercial flights originating in Britain and bound for the US. In addition, the threat level is raised to orange, or “high,” for all commercial flights operating in or coming to the US. [CNN, 8/10/2006] British officials say the death toll could have exceeded the 2,700 of the September 11 attacks, with one source calling the plot “our 9/11.” The arrests were spurred by the detention in Pakistan of one of the plotters, Rashid Rauf. The Pakistanis arrested him at the behest of US Vice President Dick Cheney (see Before August 10, 2006 and Between July 28 and August 9, 2006). [Guardian, 8/11/2006] Officials say some plotters already had tickets for flights and planned to stage test runs over the weekend. Despite the 24 arrests, five suspects in Britain are still being urgently hunted. One official says, “They didn’t get them all.” But British officials claim the arrests in London and Birmingham snare all the alleged “main players.” [MSNBC, 8/10/2006] British Home Secretary John Reid says the operation is ongoing and more arrests may be made. US officials say the suspects are all British citizens between the ages of 17 and 35, with some being of Pakistani ethnicity. They add that some of the suspects had been monitored by British intelligence for several months. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police Service Anti-Terrorist Branch, says the arrests follow an “unprecedented level of surveillance” over several months involving meetings, movements, travel, spending, and the aspirations of a large group of people. [CNN, 8/10/2006]Liquids, Gels, Electronics Banned from Flights - Homeland Security bans all liquids and gels except baby formula and prescription medications in the name of the ticket holder in carry-on luggage on all flights. Passengers traveling from and through British airports are temporarily permitted to only carry-on items on a restricted list. These items have to be carried in transparent plastic bags. No liquids can be carried on board, including liquid medications “unless verified as authentic.” All electronic items are also banned. [Detroit Free Press, 8/10/2006]Arrests, Alert Questioned - In the days following the security operation, the arrests will meet with some skepticism. Stephen Glover of the Daily Mail points to previous baseless terror scares in the US and Britain, as well as questioning the political motivations of the home secretary. [Daily Mail, 8/16/2006] Douglas Fraser of the Herald in Edinburgh suggests the “political component” of the operation has caused skepticism. He says the intelligence services are taking credit for foiling a major plot by “ramping up the level of public concern about the threat.” He notes that the timing coincides with an attempt by the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair to return to an issue it was defeated on before: increasing to 90 days the amount of time that people can be detained without charge in the case of alleged terrorist offenses. [VOA News, 8/18/2006] Sean O’Neill and Stewart Tendler of the London Times urge the public and the media to wait for solid evidence before accepting the version of events presented by the government. They say previous bungled anti-terror operations have put pressure on the authorities to build a solid case in public. [London Times, 8/12/2006] In response to these criticisms, intelligence services will be hesitant to release much information publicly, but confirm to The Guardian that surveillance and tips from informants pointed to a plot in the making. Police identify the explosives to be used in the plot as TATP (triacetone triperoxide) and HMTD (hexamethylene triperoxide diamine), both peroxide-based liquid explosives. [Guardian, 8/19/2006] Police will also reveal that the raids uncovered jihadist materials, receipts of Western Union money transfers, seven martyrdom videos, and the last will and testament of one plotter. [New York Times, 8/28/2006]Some Suspects to Be Released; Security Measures Probably Unnecessary - However, The Guardian does indicate that some of the arrested suspects are likely to be released and that the security measures instituted following the arrests are almost certainly unnecessary. [Guardian, 8/19/2006] Contradicting earlier reports, a senior British official will suggest an attack was not imminent, saying the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some do not even have passports. [MSNBC, 8/14/2006] Over two and a half weeks after the arrests, a target date for the attacks and number of planes involved will still be undetermined by investigators. The estimate of 10 to 12 planes is characterized by officials as speculative and exaggerated. Clarke acknowledges the police are still investigating “the number, destination, and timing of the flights.” [New York Times, 8/28/2006]12 Suspects to Be Tried - Twelve suspects will be charged with terrorism offences near the end of August 2006. Trials are expected to start in January 2008 at the earliest. Prosecutor Colin Gibbs says he expects “a very long trial of [between] five and eight months.” [IOL, 9/4/2006]

The CIA provides short summaries of Vice President Dick Cheney’s daily security briefings to defense attorneys for Cheney’s indicted former chief of staff, Lewis Libby. The documents are provided as per a March court order (see March 10, 2006). They have been turned over in batches since May 2006; the final documents have just been turned over. The briefing summaries cover the period in the summer of 2003 when Libby was allegedly discussing Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA identity with journalists. They also cover several weeks in the fall of 2003 when Libby was questioned by the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003), and March 2004 when Libby testified before a federal grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004). [Associated Press, 8/11/2006]

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington logo. [Source: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington]Joseph and Valerie Plame Wilson name new counsel for their lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney, White House political strategist Karl Rove, and former White House official Lewis Libby (see July 13, 2006). The Wilsons have engaged the non-profit, public interest organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) as successor counsel. They have also engaged Washington attorneys Joseph Cotchett and Frank Pitre to represent them at trial. Duke University law professor Erwin Chemerinsky remains as co-counsel. [Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, 8/15/2006] Cheney also retains counsel for the lawsuit. He hires Emmet T. Flood, a Washington lawyer who helped defend former President Bill Clinton during Clinton’s impeachment trial. Though Flood defended Clinton, a Democrat, he has donated money only to Republican political candidates. [TPM Muckraker, 8/15/2006]

Judge Reggie Walton issues a court order that withholds certain “extremely sensitive” classified documents from the Lewis Libby defense team. Walton writes that he “carefully reviewed” the requests from special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald and from the CIA to withhold the documents. The documents were provided to him ex parte and in camera, and Walton determined that they were irrelevant to the Libby defense efforts. Walton writes that the documents are “extremely sensitive and their disclosure could cause serious if not grave damage to the national security of the United States.” Walton has previously allowed other classified documents to be provided to Libby, and the CIA has provided documents requested by Libby that Walton has released to the defense (see December 14, 2005, January 9, 2006, January 20, 2006, January 23, 2006, January 23, 2006, January 31, 2006, (February 16, 2006), February 21, 2006, February 24, 2006. February 27, 2006, March 1, 2006, March 2-7, 2006, March 10, 2006, March 17, 2006, April 5, 2006, May 3, 2006, May 12, 2006, May 19, 2006, and June 2, 2006). Many of the documents provided to Libby are redacted versions or summaries of the classified documents he viewed during his morning intelligence briefings. [MSNBC, 8/18/2006] Former prosecutor Christy Hardin Smith, writing for the progressive blog FireDogLake, writes of Walton’s decision: “That there is material so sensitive in this case that Libby is not entitled to it at all… speaks volumes to me in terms of what was endangered by him and Karl Rove opening their yaps in order to exact some political payback and CYA for Dick Cheney and the Bush administration. Putting personal political fortune ahead of the security of the entire United States during a time of armed conflict to cover your bosses’ *sses for lying the nation into war? Now THAT is unpatriotic.” [Christy Hardin Smith, 8/19/2006]

The press reveals that then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met with Washington Post author Bob Woodward in June 2003 at the same time Woodward has admitted to learning from a confidential administration source that Valerie Plame Wilson was a CIA agent (see June 13, 2003). The information comes from Armitage’s 2003 appointment calendars, made available to the Associated Press through a Freedom of Information Act request. The revelation makes it likely that Armitage was the first Bush administration official to reveal that Plame Wilson was a CIA agent. Woodward admitted almost a year ago that a “current or former” administration official divulged Plame Wilson’s CIA identity to him (see November 14, 2005). Neither Woodward nor Armitage will comment on the allegations. At the same time, Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff publishes the story in his magazine. [Associated Press, 8/22/2006; New York Times, 8/23/2006; Newsweek, 9/4/2006] Lewis Libby’s defense lawyer, William Jeffress, says of the report: “I would hope that the facts on that would come out. We have asked for information as to Woodward’s source in discovery, but that has been denied.” Melanie Sloan, a lawyer representing Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband Joseph Wilson in their lawsuit against Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney, and White House official Karl Rove (see July 13, 2006), says “it sure sounds like” Armitage was the first to reveal Plame Wilson’s CIA status to a member of the press. However, Sloan adds, if Armitage revealed Plame Wilson’s identity to columnist Robert Novak (see July 8, 2003), who outed Plame Wilson (see July 14, 2003), then far from indicating Libby’s or Rove’s innocence in exposing Plame Wilson’s identity, it merely widens the conspiracy. “Then I think maybe Armitage was in on it,” Sloan says. “The question is just what was Armitage’s role?” [Associated Press, 8/22/2006] The Washington Post soon receives confirmation of Armitage’s role in the leak from a former State Department colleague. [Washington Post, 8/29/2006] Many members of the press learn about Armitage from an upcoming book, Hubris, by Michael Isikoff and David Corn. According to the book, Woodward dismissed Armitage’s outing of Plame Wilson as “gossip.” Armitage also revealed Plame Wilson’s name to columnist Robert Novak (see July 8, 2003). [Wilson, 2007, pp. 256] Partly as publicity for the book, Isikoff prints two “teaser” articles in Newsweek revealing Armitage as the source. One article is dated September 4, but appears on the Internet in late August. The articles also reveal that Armitage leaked Plame Wilson’s identity to both Woodward and Novak. [Newsweek, 8/27/2006; Newsweek, 9/4/2006]

Conservative pundits and columnists launch a new barrage of attacks and accusations against former ambassador Joseph Wilson (see July 6, 2003) and his wife, outed CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson (see July 14, 2003). The pundits use the recent revelation that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was apparently the first administration official to leak Plame Wilson’s name to the press (see August 22, 2006 and September 7, 2006). They claim that the new information proves that there was never a conspiracy to “out” Plame Wilson (see June 23, 2003, July 7, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, July 8, 2003, 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003, Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003, and Before July 14, 2003), but that her status as a covert CIA agent was revealed merely as a result of harmless gossip from Armitage, who is not considered a major part of the neoconservative axis of power within the White House. [Washington Post, 9/1/2006]Blaming Armitage and the State Department - The Wall Street Journal blames Armitage for allowing the Plame Wilson identity leak investigation to go on while he remained mute, allowing “political opportunism and internal score-settling” to drive the investigation when it never should have taken off. “The White House, in short, was not engaged in any campaign to ‘out’ Ms. Plame [Wilson],” the editorial states. Since the prosecution of Lewis Libby for perjury and obstruction during the investigation is not likely to be dropped, the editorial concludes, President Bush should end it by pardoning Libby. [Wall Street Journal, 8/30/2006] The New York Sun also chastizes Armitage for standing silent “while the president’s critics sullied the good names of Messrs. Cheney, Libby, and Rove.” [National Review, 7/19/2004; New York Sun, 8/30/2006] A similar position is advocated by neoconservative John Podhoretz, writing for the New York Post, who also says that the Armitage revelation should result in special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald dropping all charges against Libby. [New York Post, 8/29/2006] Neoconservative Frank Gaffney, writing for the online political publication TownHall, accuses both Armitage and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as other senior State Department officials, of being “disloyalists” who “wage[d] war” against the Bush administration “from behind enemy lines”—from his position in the State Department, essentially functioning as a saboteur for unnamed liberal interests, and to win ground the State Department lost in conflicts with the White House. Gaffney goes further, accusing other State Department officials of intentionally sabotaging US nuclear negotiation efforts with North Korea (see September 19-20, 2005 and July 15, 2006). He accuses Armitage of “destructive and disloyal behavior” and “appeasement” towards North Korea and other US opponents. [Town Hall (.com), 9/5/2006] San Francisco Chronicle writer Debra Saunders calls the entire affair nothing more than “gossip,” and notes that an admission by White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove that he confirmed Plame Wilson’s identity (see July 10, 2005 and October 14, 2005) is virtually meaningless. The only “abuse of power” that has come to light during the investigation, Saunders opines, is the investigation itself. [Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 9/6/2006]Libby 'Exonerated' by Armitage Admission - The New Hampshire Union Leader calls the investigation a “non-issue” promulgated by “conspiracy nuts” now proven wrong by the Armitage admission. [New Hampshire Union Leader, 8/30/2006] Syndicated columnist Linda Chavez says the “exculpatory” Armitage revelation exonerates Libby, and calls his prosecution “malicious” and unwarranted. [Creators Syndicate, 8/30/2006]Wilson, 'Leftists' to Blame - Slate’s Christopher Hitchens goes further, attacking the “Joseph Wilson fantasy” that Iraq had not attempted to buy uranium from Niger (see March 4-5, 2002, (March 6, 2002) and March 8, 2002), calling the idea that the White House deliberately attempted to smear Wilson’s character a “paranoid fantasy” (see June 2003, June 3, 2003, June 11, 2003, June 12, 2003, June 19 or 20, 2003, July 6, 2003, July 6-10, 2003, July 7, 2003 or Shortly After, 8:45 a.m. July 7, 2003, 9:22 a.m. July 7, 2003, July 7-8, 2003, July 11, 2003, (July 11, 2003), July 12, 2003, July 12, 2003, July 18, 2003, October 1, 2003, April 5, 2006, and April 9, 2006), and concluding that the entire Plame Wilson imbroglio was the result of a “venom[ous] interdepartmental rivalry” between Armitage’s State Department and the White House, blown entirely out of proportion by liberal critics of the Bush administration. [Slate, 8/29/2006] A National Review editorial blames the New York Times editorial board and “shrieking” “leftist adversaries” of the Bush administration for the investigation, and, like Chavez and others, calls for the immediate end of the Libby prosecution. [National Review, 8/30/2006] The Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes compiles a “rogues list” of “the Plamegate Hall of Shame,” including Armitage, his former boss Colin Powell, Patrick Fitzgerald, the Justice Department, Joseph Wilson, and the media. “So instead of Cheney or Rove or Libby,” Barnes writes, “the perennial targets of media wrath, the Plamegate Hall of Shame consists of favorites of the Washington elite and the mainstream press.” And like the others, Barnes calls on Fitzgerald to immediately terminate his investigation as well as his prosecution of Libby. [Weekly Standard, 9/2/2006] And the Washington Times’s editor in chief Wesley Pruden rounds off the attacks, rather ghoulishly predicting that the next time Plame Wilson will be mentioned in the press is when “a nice obituary in the Washington and New York newspapers and a few lines of a telegraph dispatch on a page with the truss ads in Topeka” is printed. He calls Plame Wilson, who headed the CIA’s Joint Task Force on Iraq (see April 2001 and After), “the queen of the clipping scissors and pastepots at the CIA” (see September 29, 2003), and calls the leak investigation a “fraud.” [Washington Times, 9/5/2006]Picked Up by Mainstream Media - Many in the mainstream media echo the new line of attack, with the Washington Post’s editorial board joining the other editorials and columnists in demanding that the Libby prosecution be immediately terminated. Echoing a Wall Street Journal guest editorial from almost a year before (see November 3, 2005), the Post editorial claims that because Plame Wilson’s husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, went public with his knowledge of the Bush administration’s false claims that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger (see July 6, 2003), he is ultimately responsible for outing his wife. The Post writes: “Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming—falsely, as it turned out—that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush’s closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It’s unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.” The allegation that Wilson had “falsely… debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger” is itself false, as Wilson’s report further proved that no such deals ever took place (see March 4-5, 2002, (March 6, 2002) and March 8, 2002). [Washington Post, 9/1/2006] The New York Times’s conservative columnist, David Brooks, joins in the attacks, calling the exposure of Plame Wilson a “piffle” (see Before September 16, 2003, October 3, 2003, October 11, 2003, October 22-24, 2003, October 23-24, 2003, October 29, 2005, and February 13, 2006) blown out of proportion by a group of Congressional Democrats and the 2004 presidential campaign of John Kerry. Like the others, he blames Armitage for “keep[ing] quiet while your comrades are being put through the ringer [sic].” [New York Times, 8/31/2006] Days later, the Post’s David Broder writes that Karl Rove, one of the White House officials who outed Plame (see July 8, 2003 and 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003), had been treated badly by reporters and pundits, and deserved a round of apologies. [Washington Post, 9/7/2006]'Marvel of Wingnut Logic' - Author Jane Hamsher, writing for the progressive blog FireDogLake, hammers the Post editorial and its presumed author, op-ed editor Fred Hiatt, writing with some apparent outrage: “[T]o argue that somehow this [Armitage] leak—which played no part in the concerted administration effort to bully, intimidate, and punish Joe Wilson—should somehow excuse Scooter Libby and Karl Rove’s subsequent actions is a true marvel of wingnut logic. Incredibly it is somehow okay to rob the liquor store, shoot the owner, rape the cashier, and spatter the walls with blood because someone else was caught shoplifting there the week before. It is the Sistine Chapel of bad faith editorials.” [Jane Hamsher, 9/1/2006]Comparisons to Soviet Propaganda - Plame Wilson herself is “furious” at reading the Post editorial and other, similar writings. In her 2007 book Fair Game, she will write, “I suddenly understood what it must have felt like to live in the Soviet Union and have only the state propaganda entity, Pravda, as the source of news about the world.” Plame Wilson calls the allegations that her husband is responsible for outing her “flatly untrue,” and shows the writers’ “ignorance about how our clandestine service functions.” She notes that the FBI had known of the Armitage leak since October 2003, and that since “the FBI didn’t shut down the investigation” this indicated “they had good reason to believe that Libby and Rove were lying to them.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 257-260]

A legal associate of former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage says that Armitage has admitted to being one of the government officials who told columnist Robert Novak that Valerie Plame Wilson was a CIA official (see July 8, 2003 and July 14, 2003). According to the lawyer, Armitage has confirmed being Novak’s “primary,” or original, source for the information. Armitage’s role as one of the government leakers of Plame Wilson’s identity has recently come to light in the press (see August 22, 2006), though earlier press reports have focused on Armitage’s leak to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward (see June 13, 2003). [New York Times, 8/29/2006]

Actor Kiefer Sutherland as ‘Jack Bauer.’ [Source: Stuff.co.nz]Law professor Phillippe Sands begins a series of interviews with the former staff judge advocate for the US Army in Guantanamo, Lieutenant Colonel Diane Beaver. She is the author of a legal analysis that was used by the Bush administration to justify its extreme interrogation techniques (see October 11, 2002). Sands describes her as “coiled up—mistreated, hung out to dry.” She is unhappy with the way the administration used her analysis, and notes that she was guided in her work at Guantanamo by personnel from the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency. She believes that some of the interrogation techniques were “reverse-engineered” from a training program called SERE—Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape—though administration officials have denied this. Several Guantanamo personnel were sent to Fort Bragg, SERE’s home, for a briefing on the program (see December 2001, January 2002 and After, Mid-April 2002, Between Mid-April and Mid-May 2002, July 2002, July 2002, July 2002, and August 1, 2002). Military training was not the only source of inspiration. Fox’s television drama 24 came to a conclusion in the spring of 2002, Beaver recalls. One of the overriding messages of that show is that torture works. “We saw it on cable,” Beaver remembers. “People had already seen the first series. It was hugely popular.” The story’s hero, Jack Bauer, had many friends at Guantanamo, Beaver adds. “He gave people lots of ideas.” She recalls in graphic terms how excited many of the male personnel became when extreme interrogation methods were discussed. “You could almost see their d_cks getting hard as they got new ideas,” she will say. “And I said to myself, You know what? I don’t have a d_ck to get hard—I can stay detached.” The FBI and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service refused to become involved in aggressive interrogations, she says (see Late March through Early June, 2002 and December 17, 2002). [Vanity Fair, 5/2008]

Neoconservative academic Meyrav Wurmser, the director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Hudson Institute, says the problem with the Iraq war is that it is confined to Iraq. “It’s a mess, isn’t it?” she says. “My argument has always been that this war is senseless if you don’t give it a regional context.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 344-345]

In his book The Greatest Story Ever Sold, author and New York Times media critic Frank Rich writes that President Bush never entered Iraq with any idea of “nation-building.” Bush “never talked about building a democracy in Iraq” during the planning and marketing of the invasion, Rich writes. “The reason he didn’t talk about it was not that he was consciously trying to keep a hidden, hard-to-sell motive secret. The record shows that, for once, Bush’s private convictions actually did match his public stance. Neither he nor the administration had any intention of doing any nation-building. The war plan was an easy exercise in regime change, a swift surgical procedure, after which the Iraqis would be left to build their own democracy by spontaneous civic combustion, like Eastern Europeans after the fall of the Soviet Union. The Americans would hang around in small numbers, perhaps, to protect the oil ministry—the only institution they did protect after routing Saddam. Every single administration action of the time confirms that nation-building was not in the cards. That’s why General Jay Garner was picked as the top American official after the fall of Baghdad (see January 2003): The White House wanted a short-term military emissary rather than a full-dress occupation administrator because the job description required only that he manage a quick turnaround of power to the Iraqis and an immediate exit for American troops. That’s why [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld and the war cabinet bought a Tommy Franks plan to draw down those troops from 130,000 to 30,000 by the fall of 2003. It’s also why the only serious prewar plan for rebuilding Iraq, the State Department’s ‘Future of Iraq’ project, was shelved by the White House (see April 2002-March 2003). General Anthony Zinni’s ‘Desert Crossing’ plan for Iraq occupation, which he bequeathed to Franks, his successor, was also shunted aside (see April-July 1999). Any such bothersome little details were entrusted instead to the Defense Department’s Douglas Feith, whose only (non) qualification was that he had been a loyal provider of cherry-picked Iraq intelligence to [Vice President Dick] Cheney and [Cheney’s then-chief of staff Lewis ‘Scooter’] Libby before the war.… Had nation-building been in the White House’s plan, surely someone would have bothered to investigate what nation was being rebuilt.” Even after Garner’s replacement by Coalition Provisional Authority chief Paul Bremer (see May 11, 2003), nation-building wasn’t on the agenda. The two heads of “private-sector development” in Iraq were, in Rich’s words, “a former Bush campaign finance chair in Connecticut and a venture capitalist who just happened to be [then-press secretary] Ari Fleischer’s brother.” The CPA was staffed by “twentysomethings with no foreign service experience or knowledge of Arabic simply because they had posted their resumes at the Heritage Foundation (see June 25, 2004).… The ‘nation-building’ that America finally did undertake was an improvised initiative, heavier on PR than on achievement, to justify the mission retroactively. Only then did the war’s diehard defenders disingenuously grandfather it in as a noble calling contemplated by the Bush White House from the start.” [Rich, 2006, pp. 213-214]

The New York Post editorial board writes that, in light of recent revelations that former Secretary of State Richard Armitage leaked the name of Valerie Plame Wilson to reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Novak (see August 22, 2006, Late August-Early September, 2006, and Late August-Early September, 2006), the only remaining question is “how to do right by the principal victim of the farce—former vice presidential aide I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby?” The Armitage revelation “completely unravels the notion that there was a broad institutional conspiracy” to expose the CIA identity of Plame Wilson, the Post states, and for three years Libby and the Bush administration have been victimized by “loony-left conspiracy-mongering.” The Post blames Armitage and his then-boss, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, for standing by while the outcry against the Plame Wilson leak developed. Even though “Libby shouldn’t have lied to investigators, as he is alleged to have done,” the Post says “the investigation should never have been launched in the first place. It was the product of wild charges from an embittered, partisan former official [Joseph Wilson—see July 6, 2003], combined with bad faith and lack of candor from the top two men at State.” The Post concludes with a call for President Bush to pardon Libby and “let the country put this sorry episode behind it.” [New York Post, 9/2/2006] A day later, the Boston Herald editorial board issues an almost identical call for a presidential pardon for Libby, and excoriates Armitage and Powell for their roles in the affair. [Boston Herald, 9/3/2006] Two days after the Herald publishes its editorial, the Los Angeles Times publishes an editorial which does not directly advocate a pardon for Libby, but calls the Plame Wilson identity leak investigation and the trial a “dark comedy of errors” that should have been ended “long ago.” [Los Angeles Times, 9/5/2006]

Rowan Scarborough. [Source: NNDB (.com)]Washington Times reporter Rowan Scarborough writes an extensive analysis of the Plame Wilson identity leak investigation, calling it an attempt by liberals to bring down a Republican president just as the Nixon-era Watergate scandal did (see October 18, 1972 and June 27, 1973), and accuses “leftists” throughout Congress and the media of orchestrating a smear campaign against former White House official Lewis Libby. Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is little more than a tool of those “leftists,” he writes. Scarborough, who is not identified as the author by the Times but is identified on the reprint of the article on the Libby Legal Defense Fund Web site, reviews and echoes many of the same criticisms others on the right have already stated, that since Libby was not the first administration official to leak Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity to a reporter, he must be innocent of the charges against him (see Late August-Early September, 2006). “[T]he ‘scandal’ is played out,” Scarborough writes, and the hopes of liberals to see the destruction of the Bush administration are “shattered.” Scarborough says that Libby (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003) and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage (see June 13, 2003 and July 8, 2003) revealed Plame Wilson’s identity for no other reason than to set the record straight about Plame Wilson sending her husband, Joseph Wilson, to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from that country (see February 19, 2002, July 22, 2003, October 17, 2003, and July 20, 2005). Armitage and Libby were concerned, Scarborough writes, that Wilson went to Niger at the behest of Vice President Dick Cheney (see (February 13, 2002)), when in actuality, Scarborough states, Wilson went to Niger, and subsequently printed an influential op-ed in the New York Times (see July 6, 2003), “to chastise the president for citing a British intelligence report in his January 2003 State of the Union address about a possible Niger-Iraq connection” (see Mid-January 2003 and 9:01 pm January 28, 2003). Scarborough claims falsely that neither the White House nor CIA Director George Tenet knew of Wilson’s trip to Niger (see March 8, 2002); he cites false information promulgated by Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee in that body’s report on prewar intelligence and Iraqi WMD (see July 9, 2004), and contradictory statements by conservative columnist Robert Novak (see July 14, 2003, July 21, 2003, September 29, 2003, October 1, 2003, December 14, 2005, July 12, 2006, and July 12, 2006), who outed Plame Wilson in his column (see July 14, 2003). Like many of his colleagues, Scarborough blames Wilson for the exposure of his wife’s CIA identity. [Washington Times, 9/5/2006; Libby Legal Defense Trust, 9/5/2006]

Jonah Goldberg. [Source: MSNBC / MediaBistro (.com)]Conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg, writing for the National Review, compares former ambassador Joseph Wilson (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002 and July 6, 2003) to self-proclaimed child murderer John Mark Karr, who falsely confessed to raping and killing six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey. After writing that “Wilson is no more a would-be pedophile than Karr is a former diplomat,” Goldberg calls both men “attention-seeking liars who deliberately helped launch criminal investigations that should never have gone as far as they did” and the beneficiaries of “media feeding frenzies that wasted everybody’s time.” In some ways, Goldberg writes, Wilson is worse than Karr: at least when Karr lied to the press, he attempted to fix the blame for his supposed actions for himself. Wilson, on the other hand, was “a one-man sprinkler system of false accusations” against Bush administration officials such as the “falsely accused” Lewis Libby. Goldberg repeats false claims by Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee that Wilson’s discoveries in Niger actually bolstered administration claims of Iraqi attempts to buy Nigerien uranium (see July 9, 2004), and repeats discredited claims that Wilson’s wife, exposed CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson, sent him to Niger (see February 19, 2002, July 22, 2003, October 17, 2003, and July 20, 2005). Goldberg calls Wilson “self-lionizing” and “vengeful,” and goes one step further than most of his fellow conservatives (see September 5, 2006), saying, “Indeed, there’s good reason to believe Wilson himself leaked the information that Plame was an undercover agent.” Goldberg advances no information to back this particular claim. Instead of doing its “rightful” job in challenging Wilson’s allegations from the outset, Goldberg writes, the “mob” of “liberal pundits” at the New York Times and other press outlets went “hog wild” in chasing the possibility of wrongdoing performed by Bush officials such as Libby and Karl Rove. [National Review, 9/5/2006]

David Corn, a Nation editor and co-author of the book Hubris with Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff, reveals the nature of Valerie Plame Wilson’s status and duties as a CIA agent in his column. Isikoff and Corn have revealed similar information in their book; both accounts are based on interviews with confidential CIA sources. To answer the question of whether columnist Robert Novak broke the law when he “outed” Plame Wilson as a covert CIA official (see July 14, 2003) depends on whether Plame Wilson was, indeed, an undercover agent. Novak has called her “an analyst, not in covert operations” (see October 1, 2003). Conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg has called her a “desk jockey” whose CIA status was common knowledge within Washington (see September 30, 2003). A Republican congressman called her a “glorified secretary” (see September 29, 2003). White House officials have suggested that her employment was no real secret. But according to the research done by Isikoff and Corn, none of that is true. Corn writes: “Valerie Wilson was no analyst or paper-pusher. She was an operations officer working on a top priority of the Bush administration. [Richard] Armitage, [Karl] Rove, and [Lewis] Libby had revealed information about a CIA officer who had searched for proof of the president’s case. In doing so, they harmed her career and put at risk operations she had worked on and foreign agents and sources she had handled” (see July 21, 2003, September 27, 2003, October 22-24, 2003, and October 23-24, 2003)). The book also demonstrates that Plame Wilson did not send her husband, Joseph Wilson, on the now-famous trip to Niger as many Bush administration supporters have claimed (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002, February 19, 2002, and July 22, 2003). Isikoff and Corn have verified Plame Wilson’s status as a NOC, or “non-official cover” officer, the highest and most clandestine of the CIA’s field agents (see Fall 1992 - 1996). Her job as a NOC was to recruit agents and informants for the CIA in foreign countries. After her return to Washington, she joined the counterproliferation division’s Iraq desk (see 1997), and eventually headed the operations unit of the CIA’s Joint Task Force on Iraq (JTFI), the agency’s unit in learning about Iraq’s WMD programs (see 2002 and April 2001 and After)—which, Corn writes, was first launched months before the 9/11 attacks. Plame Wilson not only worked on JTFI duties in Washington, but in the Middle East, including a trip to Jordan to determine whether aluminum tubes purchased by Iraq were for conventional missiles or for nuclear centrifuges. When Novak blew her cover, she was preparing to change her clandestine status from NOC to official cover, with plans to eventually return to secret operations. As Corn observes, Novak and the White House officials who leaked the information of her CIA status to him (see September 28, 2003) destroyed her chances of continuing her career, jeopardized the foreign agents and sources she had worked with (see October 3, 2003), and hindered the nation’s ability to determine the truth behind the claims of Iraqi WMD. [Nation, 9/6/2006]

Former Scripps Howard editor Dan Thomasson, writing for the Cincinnati Post, writes that the Plame Wilson identity leak investigation is the most “bizarre, silly, overblown, and wasteful affair” he has seen in his 43 years of Washington reporting. The exposure of Valerie Plame Wilson broke no laws and did no damage to national security or US intelligence-gathering efforts, Thomasson writes (see Before September 16, 2003, October 3, 2003, October 11, 2003, October 22-24, 2003, October 23-24, 2003, October 29, 2005, and February 13, 2006). Once the FBI learned the source of the Plame Wilson leak, whom Thomasson asserts was no one besides former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage (see October 2, 2003), the investigation should have been terminated, even before the appointment of a special counsel to continue it (see December 30, 2003). Thomasson believes that the CIA pushed for the continuance of the investigation “as a diversion from the mounting furor over its own inadequacies in counterintelligence, ranging from the 9/11 terrorist attacks to its assessment of Iraq’s nuclear and biochemical capabilities.” Thomasson concludes that the investigation, and the upcoming Libby trial, are “far worse in [their] potential results and future implications than the original leak ever was.” [Cincinnati Post, 9/6/2006]

Abu Zubaida circa 2008. [Source: Defense Department.]In a speech defending the US treatment of high-level al-Qaeda prisoners, President Bush apparently makes some false claims about how valuable the intelligence from some prisoners was. He says that Abu Zubaida, who was captured in March 2002 (see March 28, 2002), revealed that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) used the alias ‘Mukhtar.’ “This was a vital piece of intelligence that helped our intelligence community pursue KSM.” However, the 9/11 Commission’s final report published in 2004 revealed that the fact that KSM had that alias was known to US intelligence before 9/11 (see August 28, 2001). Bush also claims that Zubaida’s interrogation identified Ramzi bin al-Shibh as an accomplice in the 9/11 attacks. [New York Times, 9/8/2006] However, this was known months before Zubaida’s capture, and reported in the US press as early as September 2001. A CBS News report from that time said bin al-Shibh was “believed to have provided logistics backup for the hijackers.” [CBS News, 9/29/2001] Bush also describes the interrogation techniques used on the prisoners as “safe, lawful and effective,” and he claims torture was not used. However, the New York Times notes that “the Bush administration has yet to make public the legal papers prepared by government lawyers that served as the basis for its determination that those procedures did not violate American or international law.” [New York Times, 9/8/2006] Both the New York Times and Washington Post publish prominent stories pointing out the factual errors in Bush’s statements, but this does not become a big political issue. [Washington Post, 9/7/2006; New York Times, 9/8/2006] Bush repeatedly exaggerated the importance of Zubaida in the months after his capture as well (see Shortly After March 28, 2002).

Ali Jan Orakzai. [Source: Farooq Naeem/ Agence France-Presse]On September 5, 2006, the government of Pakistan signs an agreement known as the Waziristan Accord with militants in the tribal area of Pakistan near the border of Afghanistan known as Waziristan (see September 5, 2006). Two days later, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Lt. Gen. Ali Jan Orakzai come to the White House to meet with President Bush about the deal. Orakzai is the military commander of the region encompassing the region. He reportedly hates the US and sympathizes with the Taliban, calling them a “national liberation movement” (see Late 2002-Late 2003). In a presentation to Bush, Orakzai advocates a strategy that would rely even more heavily on cease-fires, and says striking deals with the Taliban inside Afghanistan could allow US forces to withdraw from Afghanistan within seven years. Bush supports the deal, saying in public that same day that it would not create safe havens for the Taliban and could even offer “alternatives to violence and terror.” He does add the cautionary note, “You know we are watching this very carefully, obviously.” [Rashid, 2008, pp. 277; New York Times, 6/30/2008] But three months later, the US State Department will publicly deem the deal a failure for US policy (see November-December 2006). Some US officials will begin to refer to Orakzai as a “snake oil salesman.” [New York Times, 6/30/2008]

Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage admits telling Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward (see June 13, 2003) and columnist Robert Novak (see July 8, 2003) that Valerie Plame Wilson was a CIA official, and says it was a “terrible” mistake to have done so. “Oh, I feel terrible,” he says. “Every day, I think I let down the president. I let down the secretary of state. I let down my department, my family, and I also let down Mr. and Mrs. Wilson.… I value my ability to keep state secrets. This was bad, and I really felt badly about this.” Asked if he owes the Wilsons an apology, Armitage says, “I think I’ve just done it.” He explains his conversation with Novak: “At the end of a wide-ranging interview he asked me, ‘Why did the CIA send Ambassador Wilson [Joseph Wilson, Plame Wilson’s husband] to Africa?’ I said I didn’t know, but that she worked out at the agency.” Armitage calls it “just an offhand question,” and adds, “I didn’t put any big import on it and I just answered and it was the last question we had.” He claims that the State Department intelligence memo that listed Plame Wilson as a CIA agent was only partially classified, and excuses his revelation by saying, “I had never seen a covered agent’s name in any memo in, I think, 28 years of government,” so he had no idea that Plame Wilson was a covert agent. He believes he referred to her as either “Mrs. Wilson” or “Wilson’s wife,” and adds: “I didn’t know the woman’s name was Plame. I didn’t know she was an operative.” Armitage claims he realized he was Novak’s source several months after Plame Wilson’s outing, and immediately informed the FBI (see October 1, 2003). He says he has not publicly discussed his role in the Plame Wilson affair until now because special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald asked him to remain silent: “[T]he special counsel, once he was appointed, asked me not to discuss this and I honored his request.” Fitzgerald has now released him from his pledge. Armitage has testified three times before Fitzgerald’s grand jury, the last time in December 2005, without being subpoenaed. “I was a cooperating witness from the beginning,” he says. [CBS News, 9/7/2006; New York Times, 9/8/2006]

Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald files a motion opposing the Libby defense team’s intention to call a “memory expert” to testify on Libby’s behalf (see July 31, 2006). Libby’s lawyers intend to argue that their client, indicted felon and former White House aide Lewis Libby, has a faulty memory (see January 31, 2006), and it was a series of memory lapses that caused him to make false statements to the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and the grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004) about his outing of CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson to reporters (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). Fitzgerald opposes the testimony of UCLA professor Robert Bjork, not because of problems with Bjork’s expertise in the field of human memory, but because “the defendant cannot meet his burden as the proponent of the evidence of establishing that the testimony will assist the jury in understanding or determining any of the facts at issue in this case.… To the contrary, there are strong reasons to believe that the proffered testimony may confuse, mislead, and unduly influence the jury.” Juries are often asked to evaluate a defendant’s memory in the course of a criminal trial, and it is “unusual” to present such testimony in the furtherance of a criminal defense, Fitzgerald asserts. [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 9/7/2006 ] In November, the judge will disallow Bjork’s testimony (see November 2, 2006).

David Broder. [Source: Washington Post]Washington Post columnist David Broder dismisses the entire Patrick Fitzgerald investigation as nothing more than an “overblown” morass of “[c]onspiracy theories” based on “dark suspicions” that White House political strategist Karl Rove leaked CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity to the public (see July 8, 2003 and 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003). According to Broder, there is no evidence that Rove either leaked Plame Wilson’s name to the press or “masterminded a conspiracy to discredit Iraq intelligence critic Joseph Wilson by ‘outing’ his CIA-operative wife” (see October 1, 2003). The entire issue is nothing more, Broder writes, than “a tempest in a teapot.” He says no one involved—Rove, Fitzgerald, another accused leaker, Lewis Libby, or the reporters involved, “behaved well in the whole mess,” and Broder writes that he stayed out of it except “to caution reporters who offered bold First Amendment defenses for keeping their sources’ names secret that they had better examine the motivations of the people leaking the information to be sure they deserve protection.” Critics of the Bush administration are indulging in “rants” about Rove and the White House’s approach to handling criticism, Broder writes. He concludes that reporters who criticized Rove and the White House “owe Karl Rove an apology. And all of journalism needs to relearn the lesson: Can the conspiracy theories and stick to the facts.” [Washington Post, 9/7/2006] Two months before, Novak revealed Rove as one of his sources for Plame Wilson’s covert CIA status (see July 12, 2006).

Fred Phelps, the pastor of the virulently anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas (WBC—see November 27, 1955 and After), posts a video entitled “9/11: God’s Wrath Revealed” on YouTube. During the video, Phelps tells his viewers: “Thank God for 9/11. Thank God that, five years ago, the wrath of God was poured out upon this evil nation. America, land of the sodomite damned.… We told you, right after it happened five years ago, that the deadly events of 9/11 were direct outpourings of divine retribution, the immediate visitation of God’s wrath and vengeance and punishment for America’s horrendous sodomite sins, that worse and more of it was on the way. We further told you that any politician, any political official, any preacher telling you differently as to the cause and interpretation of 9/11 is a dastardly lying false prophet, cowardly and mean, and headed for hell. And taking you with him! God is no longer with America, but is now America’s enemy. God himself is now America’s terrorist.” [Westboro Baptist Church, 9/8/2006; Southern Poverty Law Center, 2012] In an earlier Web posting about the 9/11 attacks, Phelps had this to say about the attacks and one of the American Airlines pilots who died in the attacks: “The Rod of God hath smitten fag America!… At left is the filthy face of fag evil. [Hijacked American Airlines pilot] David Charlebois. One of the hundreds of fags and dykes and fag-/dyke-enablers working for American Airlines.… If the fags have a secret funeral for David Charlebois—in order to frustrate WBC’s plan to picket his funeral—WBC will picket his house.… The multitudes slain Sept. 11, 2001, are in Hell—forever!” [Southern Poverty Law Center, 2012]

A League of the South member at a 2008 political rally. This member is wearing a button supporting the candidacy of Ron Paul (R-TX). The sign behind the supporter calls the NAACP a “racist” organization. [Source: Indyweek]Former Representative Tom Tancredo (R-CO), an outspoken opponent of immigration, is the keynote speaker at a fundraiser for a conservative organization, Americans Have Had Enough!, that lists him as its honorary chairman. Tancredo’s appearance is part of his longshot campaign for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. The event is promoted by a neo-Confederate group, the League of the South (LOS), as being its primary sponsor. On its Web site, the LOS announces: “Congressman Tom Tancredo will be our guest. Join us at the State Museum for two hours of vital information, fellowship, and good food.” The site identifies LOS liaison Lourie Salley as the event’s information contact. The room at the museum was rented by neo-Confederate activist Richard T. Hines, a member of LOS and the openly racist Council of Conservative Citizens. Tancredo speaks from a podium draped with a Confederate battle flag, and men dressed in period Confederate battle uniforms are among the audience. Even the catering was done by Piggie Park restaurant chain owner Maurice Bessinger, a prominent LOS member who sells books defending slavery. During his speech, Tancredo speaks sharply about illegal immigrants and what he calls “the cult of multiculturalism.” He also decries those whom he says deny the “Christian principles enshrined in the US Constitution.” At the end of the speech, men in Confederate uniforms sing the Confederate anthem “Dixie,” and Tancredo joins in with the singing, though one reporter later writes that Tancredo seems “confused” by the singing of the song, and leaves the podium either during the song or shortly thereafter. After the event, Tancredo meets and confers with a number of LOS members on the steps of the museum, some of whom are dressed as Confederates. He displays some of the materials being distributed at the fundraiser, including a copy of the The Citizen’s Informer, the Council of Conservative Citizens’ newspaper. Tancredo later denies knowing anything about the history of the newspaper. After Tancredo’s appearance at the event is publicized, Tancredo spokesman Carlos Espinoza denies that the LOS had any connection with the event, calling the organization “a very racist and horrible group that is desperately trying to seem relevant by attaching themselves to an event that they had nothing to do with.” Espinoza goes on to defend neo-Confederates, claiming: “These aren’t racist people who spew out hate. These are just people remembering and cherishing their past.” Five days after the event, a group of 40 black churches joins with the Latino clergy group Confianza to condemn Tancredo’s appearance. Reverend Steven Dewberry says: “To join in singing ‘Dixie,’ to walk into a room that has a huge Confederate flag in it, that should have been his notice to walk out. Their [Confederate] past is our anguish, our slavery, our lynchings.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, 9/12/2006; Southern Poverty Law Center, 12/2006]

Progressive columnist Joe Conason questions the ability of many mainstream reporters and government observers to understand the underlying reality behind the Plame Wilson identity leak. He writes that “[t]he latest developments in the case… proved once more that the simplest analysis of facts is beyond the grasp of many of America’s most celebrated journalists.” The recently published book Hubris, by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, reveals that the then-Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, was apparently the first White House official to reveal the CIA status of Valerie Plame Wilson to a reporter (see June 13, 2003 and July 8, 2003). Unlike two other White House leakers, Karl Rove (see July 8, 2003 and 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003) and Lewis Libby (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003), Armitage was not sold on the idea of the Iraq invasion. Because of these facts, Conason writes, many journalists and observers have decided that Rove and Libby are both “guiltless” of any criminal or underhanded conduct, “that there was no White House effort to expose Ms. Wilson, and that the entire leak investigation was a partisan witch hunt and perhaps an abuse of discretion by the special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald (see February 6, 2007). The same pundits now proclaim that Mr. Armitage’s minor role somehow proves the White House didn’t seek to punish Valerie Wilson and her husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson, for his decision to publicly debunk the presidential misuse of dubious intelligence from Niger concerning Iraq’s alleged attempts to purchase yellowcake uranium.” Conason writes that to draw such conclusions is simple-minded. “It’s a simple concept—two people or more can commit a similar act for entirely different reasons—but evidently it has flummoxed the great minds of contemporary journalism.” Armitage let Plame Wilson’s identity slip in what was apparently a gossip session. Rove and Libby, on the other hand, “sought to undermine Joe Wilson’s credibility—and perhaps to victimize him and his wife—by planting information about Valerie Wilson with two reporters.” Fitzgerald understands the difference in motivation between Armitage and Rove/Libby, Conason writes, but many journalists seem not to understand that difference. “It is a simple matter,” Conason concludes, “and yet still too challenging for the national press to understand.” [New York Observer, 9/10/2006]

US senior negotiator Christopher Hill warns North Korea that it should not test a nuclear device (see October 9, 2006), and that if it does, the US may consider it a “provocative act,” implying that the US might retaliate with military force. [BBC, 12/2007]

9/11 victims’ family members Michelle Little, Christina Kminek, and Donna Marsh O’Connor. [Source: Life]9/11 victims’ family members Donna Marsh O’Connor, Christina Kminek, and Michelle Little hold a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, to call for a new investigation into the 9/11 attacks. Additionally, they want to promote an independently-produced documentary that questions gaps in the official investigations of 9/11. The documentary is 9/11: Press For Truth, which focuses on the families that fought for the creation of the 9/11 Commission. “We are not crazy. We have questions,” says O’Connor. Asked: “Why had the US military defenses failed to stop any of the four hijacked planes [on 9/11]?” former Indiana Congressman Lee Hamilton, who helped lead the 9/11 Commission, says the Commission looked into the issue and got conflicting answers. He says: “Were we lied to? I don’t know that answer. We certainly were given bad information.” [WTHR, 9/11/2006]

Conservative columnist Robert Novak, who outed CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson three years ago (see July 14, 2003) after receiving the information about her from, among other sources, then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage (see July 8, 2003), writes of the Armitage leak. Novak writes that he feels free to discuss it publicly now that Armitage has publicly admitted to being one of Novak’s sources (see September 7, 2006). Accusation of Misrepresentation - Novak says Armitage misrepresented the nature of their conversation, and wants “to set the record straight based on firsthand knowledge.” Armitage was not passing along information that he “thought” might be the case, Novak writes. “Rather, he identified to me the CIA division where Mrs. Wilson worked [counterproliferation], and said flatly that she recommended the mission to Niger by her husband, former Amb[assador] Joseph Wilson. Second, Armitage did not slip me this information as idle chitchat, as he now suggests. He made clear he considered it especially suited for my column.” Armitage Leak Discredits 'Left-Wing Fantasy' of White House Smear Campaign - Novak then says that Armitage’s identity as one of the Plame Wilson leakers discredits the “left-wing fantasy of a well-crafted White House conspiracy to destroy Joe and Valerie Wilson” (see June 2003, June 3, 2003, June 11, 2003, June 12, 2003, June 19 or 20, 2003, July 6, 2003, July 6-10, 2003, July 7, 2003 or Shortly After, 8:45 a.m. July 7, 2003, 9:22 a.m. July 7, 2003, July 7-8, 2003, July 11, 2003, (July 11, 2003), July 12, 2003, July 12, 2003, July 18, 2003, October 1, 2003, and April 5, 2006). Armitage was a long-time skeptic of the Iraq invasion, as was Wilson, and Novak himself writes that he “long had opposed military intervention in Iraq.” After his July 2003 column, “[z]ealous foes of George W. Bush transformed me improbably into the president’s lapdog.… The news that [Armitage] and not Karl Rove was the leaker was devastating news for the Left.” Novak is apparently not admitting that Rove was a primary source for the Plame Wilson column (see July 8, 2003, July 8 or 9, 2003, and 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003). Novak also writes that he finds it difficult to believe Armitage’s claim that he only realized he was Novak’s source for the leak after reading Novak’s October 1, 2003 column (see October 1, 2003). He calls Armitage’s disclosure “tardy” and “tainted,” since in Novak’s view, Armitage’s silence “enabled partisan Democrats in Congress to falsely accuse Rove of being my primary source.” [Chicago Sun-Times, 9/14/2006]Author: Novak Changed Story for Fourth Time - Progressive author and blogger Marcy Wheeler accuses Novak of “changing his story for the fourth time” (see July 12, 2006) in his recounting of the Armitage episode. In his original column (based in part on Armitage’s confirmation—see July 8, 2003 and July 14, 2003), Novak called Valerie Plame Wilson “an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction,” and credited that information to an unnamed CIA source (later revealed to be CIA spokesman Bill Harlow—see (July 11, 2003) and Before July 14, 2003). In an October 2003 column (see October 1, 2003), Novak named “a senior administration official”—Armitage—as his source for Plame Wilson’s status as an employee of the CIA’s counterproliferation division, which works on WMD (see April 2001 and After). During a subsequent interview with Fox News anchor Brit Hume, Novak again changed Armitage’s description of Plame Wilson’s duties at the CIA. Novak has also changed his story on whether Armitage’s leak was deliberate or merely “chitchat,” as Armitage has claimed. Novak told Newsday reporters that he “didn’t dig out” information on Plame Wilson, “it was given to me.… They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it.” In his October 2003 column, he revised his story, saying he “did not receive a planned leak” and called Armitage’s information “an offhand revelation.” In this current column, he reverts to claiming that Armitage deliberately leaked the information. [Marcy Wheeler, 9/13/2006]

After former State Department official Richard Armitage admits to revealing former CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity to the press (see August 22, 2006 and September 7, 2006), Plame Wilson and her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, add Armitage’s name to their lawsuit alleging that White House officials conspired to reveal her identity and besmirch her husband’s integrity and good name (see July 13, 2006). [NBC News, 9/13/2006; Wilson, 2007, pp. 260]

Philip Zelikow, who is Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s closest aide, gives a speech asserting that the US must seriously address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Otherwise, Zelikow says, the US may have trouble securing the support of Arab moderates and Europeans in dealing with the Middle East. The speech seems to be the result of a long discussion of the topic between Rice and former Bush adviser Brent Scowcroft (see October 2004). The counterattack from the neoconservatives in Vice President Cheney’s office, who want nothing to do with any settlements with the Palestinians, is immediate and fierce. Cheney’s office issues harsh condemnations of Zelikow, and neoconservative-friendly newspapers such as the Jerusalem Post and the New York Sun publish news reports designed to undermine Zelikow’s message. Rice refuses to stand up to Cheney on behalf of Zelikow, and the State Department officially repudiates Zelikow’s remarks. Zelikow resigns his post. The neoconservatives’ views on the Israeli-Palestinian issue remain the guiding force behind the Bush administration’s Middle East policies. [Unger, 2007, pp. 8]

Omar Khyam somewhere in the mountains of Pakistan, date unknown. [Source: Public domain]A man on trial in Britain for participation in a fertilizer bomb plot halts his testimony, claiming that Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency has threatened his family in Pakistan if he continues to talk. Omar Khyam, a Pakistani-Briton, is accused of leading an al-Qaeda linked plot to blow up an unknown target in Britain (see Early 2003-April 6, 2004). Six others are on trial. In testimony on previous days, Khyam confessed to attending a militant training camp in 2000 in the mountains above Rawalpindi, Pakistan. He says that the camp was run by the ISI, and he trained with AK-47 rifles, machine guns, and rocket-propelled grenades. But on the third day of testimony, when asked if he had bought the fertilizer to make a bomb in Britain, he responds: “Before we go on to that topic, I just want to say the ISI in Pakistan has had words with my family relating to what I have been saying about them. I think they are worried I might reveal more about them, so right now, as much as I want to clarify matters, the priority for me has to be the safety of my family so I am going to stop.” He adds, “I am not going to discuss anything related to the ISI any more or my evidence.” [Guardian, 9/19/2006; BBC, 4/30/2007] The ISI has a reputation of arresting family members and threatening them to accomplish their goals. For instance, when Saeed Sheikh was wanted for the murder of reporter Daniel Pearl, the ISI reportedly rounded up 10 members of his family and threatened to harm them, forcing him to turn himself in to the ISI. He later refused to discuss his connection to the ISI, only saying: “I will not discuss this subject. I do not want my family to be killed” (see February 5, 2002). [Vanity Fair, 8/2002] Khyam will be found guilty and sentenced to life in prison (see Early 2003-April 6, 2004).

Georgia’s controversial state voter identification law, which was touted by Bradley J. Schlozman, the Justice Department’s head of the voting rights section, as not being discriminatory towards minority voters (see November 25, 2005), is declared unconstitutional by Fulton County Superior Court Judge T. Jackson Bedford Jr., who said this law “cannot be.” The law, pushed through the Georgia legislature by Governor Sonny Perdue (R-GA) and state Republicans in order to fight what they call persistent voter fraud (see 2005), says that forcing citizens to pay money for a state voter identification card disenfranchises citizens who are otherwise qualified to vote. The state voter ID would require what the law calls “proof of citizenship.” Many poor and minority voters lack birth certificates, some because they lack the financial means to obtain them and others because they were born in a time and area in which birth certificates were not routinely issued. Rosalind Lake, an elderly and visually disabled voter, brought a lawsuit against the state because she says she is unable to drive and would not easily be able to obtain such an ID. Even though the state offered to deliver an ID to Lake’s home, her lawyer, former Governor Roy Barnes (D-GA), says others in her position would not be given such an offer. “We have a low voter participation,” he says. “We’re going to make it more difficult?” Under earlier law, Georgia voters could submit any of 17 types of identification to prove their identity. The new law poses one voter ID that would require a birth certificate. Perdue and others have cited information showing that 5,000 dead people “voted” in the eight elections preceding the 2000 elections, but Barnes notes that those votes were all cast by absentee ballots, which would not be affected by the new law. Barnes says, “This is the most sinister scheme I’ve ever seen, and it’s going on nationwide.” The law was already rejected by US District Judge Harold L. Murphy, who likened it to Jim Crow-era legal restrictions designed to stop African-Americans from voting. The Georgia General Assembly rewrote the law to remove the $20 fee for its acquisition, but Murphy refused to lift his injunction against the law. Bedford rules that the law places an unwarranted burden of proof on voters. “Any attempt by the legislature to require more than what is required by the express language of our Constitution cannot withstand judicial scrutiny,” he says. [Washington Post, 9/20/2006]

NBC producer Joel Seidman interviews two former prosecutors, and asks them to assess the impact of the recent revelation that Richard Armitage, not Lewis Libby, was the first government official to leak Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA status on Libby’s upcoming trial (see September 7, 2006). Seidman opens his article by claiming that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald may face an “uphill battle” in getting a conviction in light of the Armitage revelation, writing, “The possible testimony of the State Department’s former number two official [Armitage], and that of the first journalist to print the name Valerie Plame Wilson [columnist Robert Novak], could potentially sway a jury that there is reasonable doubt to the perjury charges against Libby.” Seidman goes on to call the news of Armitage’s leak a “bombshell announcement,” and a piece of information that Fitzgerald “chose to keep… secret.” Further, Seidman notes that because Armitage and Novak are in some disagreement about the chain of events surrounding Armitage’s leak to Novak (see July 8, 2003) and September 13, 2006), this discontinuity “could enable Libby to argue that he, Libby, wasn’t the only one confused in this case” (see January 31, 2006). It is unclear whether Armitage will testify at Libby’s trial. Seidman interviews two former prosecutors: Solomon Weisenberg, who worked with special prosecutor Kenneth Starr during the Whitewater investigation, and Larry Barcella. Weisenberg says Libby’s lawyers can take “full advantage of the emotional value of Armitage’s admission,” and that while Armitage is not part of the case against Libby, the lawyers could argue that Fitzgerald conducted a sloppy investigation, and has witnesses who contradict one another. However, Barcella says that because the charges facing Libby are about his lying under oath (see October 28, 2005), Armitage’s leaks are irrelevant. [MSNBC, 9/20/2006] Former prosecutor Christy Hardin Smith, writing for the progressive blog FireDogLake, says Seidman is echoing “GOP-pushed media logic,” which she analogizes to the argument that “someone who steals three of your hubcaps, strips your car down of all the valuable parts, take[s] the license plate, and steals your registration should not be charged for all of those crimes because someone else took the first hubcap a little earlier in the day. Um… yeah. Try again. You lie repeatedly to a federal investigator, you pay the penalty, and no amount of after-the-fact *ss-covering obfuscation gets around the fact that Libby lied, repeatedly. If he didn’t need to do so because he and those around him did nothing wrong, then why did he lie on multiple occasions? And why did a federal grand jury find it troubling enough to indict him on five felony counts for doing so?” [Christy Hardin Smith, 9/20/2006]

Lewis Libby’s defense team files a brief with the court that indicates Libby will testify in his own defense at his upcoming trial. According to the brief, Libby will: testify on his own behalf during the trial; introduce a PowerPoint presentation at his trial; attempt to introduce his notes made during pertinent times; and attempt to introduce classified documents, including documents pertaining to former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s trip to Niger (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002), which his lawyers say can be admitted under exceptions to the hearsay rule. “Mr. Libby must be able to discuss classified information to give the jury an accurate picture of his state of mind during the relevant time period and to show the jury that any errors he made in his statements and testimony were the product of confusion, mistake, and faulty memory rather than deliberate misrepresentations,” defense attorneys write in the brief. [US District Court for the District of Columbia, 9/22/2006 ; Associated Press, 9/23/2006; Jeralyn Merritt, 9/23/2006]

Wisconsin Department of Administration supervisor Georgia Thompson (see 2001 and June 13, 2006) is sentenced to 18 months in prison for allegedly steering a state travel contract to a firm whose executives contributed $20,000 to the campaign of Governor Jim Doyle (D-WI—see October 19, 2005, October 2005, and January 24, 2006). She was convicted of misapplying government funds and of defrauding the state of its right to honest services. Aside from her prison term, Thompson is sentenced to pay $4,000 in fines and serve three years of supervised release. The jury concluded that the firm, Adelman Travel, would not have been awarded a $750,000 contract had Thompson not manipulated the selection process. “People are deserving of good and honest government,” says District Judge Rudolph T. Randa. “There has been too much of this recently; people tend to lose confidence.” Thompson is appealing the conviction. The judge and attorneys for both sides have acknowledged the political nature of the case. Wisconsin Republican Party chairman Rick Wiley has already used Thompson in attack ads targeting Doyle for the upcoming election, with one ad saying, “Jim Doyle has rigged contracts for cash, he’s rigged votes to make political attacks, and by failing to protect our electoral process, this election is ripe for fraud once again.” Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Joe Wineke says of the ads, “For months, Republicans have been trying to use the Georgia Thompson case for their own political advantage and to smear Governor Doyle.” [Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 9/22/2006]

President Musharraf appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart to promote his new book. [Source: Adam Rountree / AP]President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan publishes his autobiography, In the Line of Fire, generating a number of controversies: He speculates that Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was involved in the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl (see January 23, 2002) and is said to have wired money to the 9/11 hijackers (see Early August 2001), may have been recruited by MI6 in the 1990s (see Before April 1993). The Independent will also comment, “he does not mention that British-born Omar Saeed Sheikh, who planned the Pearl abduction, had surrendered a week before his arrest was announced to a general with intelligence links who was Musharraf’s friend. What happened during that week?” [Independent, 11/21/2006] Musharraf writes, “Those who habitually accuse us of not doing enough in the war on terror should simply ask the CIA how much prize money it has paid to the Government of Pakistan.” [Press Trust of India, 9/28/2006] However, US law forbids rewards being paid to a government. The US Justice Department says: “We didn’t know about this. It should not happen. These bounty payments are for private individuals who help to trace terrorists on the FBI’s most-wanted list, not foreign governments.” [London Times, 9/26/2006] Musharraf then backtracks and claims the Government of Pakistan has not received any money from the US for capturing people. [Press Trust of India, 9/28/2006] He also claims that State Department Official Richard Armitage threatened that if Pakistan did not co-operate with the “war on terror,” the US would bomb it “back into the stone age” (see September 13-15, 2001). The book does not receive good reviews. For example, the Independent calls it “self-serving and self-indulgent” and concludes that “Readers who want to understand contemporary Pakistan deserve a more honest book.” [Independent, 11/21/2006] In a review with the sub-heading “Most of Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s new book cannot be believed,” the Wall Street Journal writes, “The book is not so much an autobiography as a highly selective auto-hagiography, by turns self-congratulatory, narcissistic, and mendacious.” [Wall Street Journal, 10/19/2006]

The 9/11 Commission interviewed presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush in 2004 (see April 29, 2004) but the details of what was revealed in these interviews were not included in the commission’s final report (with one exception, see August 6, 2001). On this day, former 9/11 Commission Richard Ben-Veniste says, “I had hoped that we had—we would have made both the Clinton interview and the Bush interview a part of our report, but that was not to be. I was outvoted on that question.… I didn’t have the votes.… I think the question was that there was a degree of confidentiality associated with that and that we would take from that the output that is reflected in the report, but go no further. And that until some five years’ time after our work, we would keep that confidential. I thought we would be better to make all of the information that we had available to the public and make our report as transparent as possible so that the American public could have that.” [CNN, 9/25/2006]

Judge Reggie Walton holds a hearing with prosecutors for special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald and representatives from Lewis Libby’s defense team on the issue of “graymail,” which Fitzgerald has alleged is a tactic being employed by Libby’s team (see After October 28, 2005, January 31, 2006, February 6, 2006, and (February 16, 2006)). “Graymail” is the attempt by one side in a court proceeding to derail the proceeding by insisting on the use of classified materials as evidence, and demanding mistrials or dropped charges if and when those classified materials are disallowed. Libby’s lawyers have privately and publicly implied that they will reveal national security secrets if the case actually goes to trial. The hearing, which is delayed because of a bomb threat, is the first of several hearings to be held on the subject. Fitzgerald wants to curtail the introduction of classified documents during the trial, while Libby’s lawyers want to introduce reams of classified documents into evidence (see May 10, 2006). Fitzgerald has argued repeatedly that many of the classified documents requested by Libby are irrelevant to the case at hand. Libby wants to introduce a number of highly classified presidential briefings to show his heavy and varied workload, as support for his defense that he was too overworked to testify accurately before the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and Fitzgerald’s grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004). Walton has already reminded Fitzgerald that he can dismiss the charges against Libby if he feels the upcoming trial will expose national security secrets. [MSNBC, 9/26/2006; Christy Hardin Smith, 9/27/2006]

Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) speaks out against the Military Commissions Act (MCA), which gives the federal government wide latitude to incarcerate and interrogate “terror suspects” without charge or due process of the law (see October 17, 2006). Obama says that “political considerations” for the upcoming midterm elections played a significant role in the timing of the bill, but “what we’re doing here today—a debate over the fundamental human rights of the accused—should be bigger than politics. This is serious. If this was a debate with obvious ideological differences—heartfelt convictions that couldn’t be settled by compromise—I would understand. But it’s not.” Obama notes that in five years of the Bush administration’s system of military tribunals, “not one terrorist has been tried. Not one has been convicted. And in the end, the Supreme Court of the United States found the whole thing unconstitutional (see June 30, 2006), which is why we’re here today. We could have fixed all of this in a way that allows us to detain and interrogate and try suspected terrorists while still protecting the accidentally accused from spending their lives locked away in Guantanamo Bay. Easily. This was not an either-or question.” Congress could have written and passed legislation that would have established “a real military system of justice that would sort out the suspected terrorists from the accidentally accused,” one that would be in line with domestic law and the Geneva Conventions. Instead, “politics won today.… The administration got its vote, and now it will have its victory lap, and now they will be able to go out on the campaign trail and tell the American people that they were the ones who were tough on the terrorists.” Meanwhile, Obama says, questions about the efficacy and legality of the Bush system of justice persist, al-Qaeda and the Taliban are regrouping “while we look the other way,” and the administration is bent on fighting a war in Iraq “that our own government’s intelligence says is serving as al-Qaeda’s best recruitment tool.… This is not how a serious administration would approach the problem of terrorism.” [US Senate, 9/28/2006]

Original cover to Woodward’s ‘State of Denial.’ [Source: Barnes and Noble]Journalist Bob Woodward’s new book State of Denial is released. While the book focuses mainly on politics regarding the Iraq war, it also describes an urgent warning that then-CIA Director George Tenet gave to Condoleezza Rice, National Security Adviser at the time, and other White House officials on July 10, 2001 (see July 10, 2001). [New York Times, 9/29/2006; New York Daily News, 9/29/2006; Washington Post, 10/1/2006] This warning had been mentioned in passing in a 2002 Time magazine article, but it had escaped widespread attention until Woodward’s book. [Time, 8/4/2002] The meeting is particularly controversial because neither the 9/11 Congressional Inquiry nor the 9/11 Commission mentioned in it in their final reports. The 9/11 Commission had learned about it from Tenet in early 2004 (see January 28, 2004). Rice and a number of 9/11 Commissioners deny knowing about the July meeting for several days, until documentation surfaces in the media detailing the meeting and Tenet’s testimony to the commission (see October 1-2, 2006 and September 30-October 3, 2006). Details about the July meeting and surrounding controversies are reported on by the mainstream media for about a week, but there are no articles on it in any prominent newspaper after October 3, 2006. On October 5, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) formally asks Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, for hearings about the revelations in Woodward’s book, including controversies surrounding the July meeting. Kerry says in a letter to Lugar, “It is necessary to understand the mistakes of the past in order to ensure they are not repeated, and having testimony from the parties under oath will help to sharpen recollections and clarify the exact nature of this important meeting.” However, no hearings take place. [Kerry, 10/5/2006]

The newly passed Military Commissions Act (MCA—see October 17, 2006) gives the executive branch sweeping new powers sought by President Bush and Vice President Cheney since the 9/11 attacks, according to a New York Times analysis. Reporters Scott Shane and Adam Liptak write, “Rather than reining in the formidable presidential powers Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have asserted since Sept. 11, 2001, the law gives some of those powers a solid statutory foundation. In effect it allows the president to identify enemies, imprison them indefinitely, and interrogate them—albeit with a ban on the harshest treatment—beyond the reach of the full court reviews traditionally afforded criminal defendants and ordinary prisoners. Taken as a whole, the law will give the president more power over terrorism suspects than he had before the Supreme Court decision this summer in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that undercut more than four years of White House policy” (see June 30, 2006). The MCA “does not just allow the president to determine the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions; it also strips the courts of jurisdiction to hear challenges to his interpretation.” Additionally, it gives Bush and his designees the absolute, unchallenged power to define anyone they choose as an “enemy combatant,” thereby stripping them of any traditional US legal protections and placing them under the far harsher and restrictive rubric of the MCA. “Over all, the legislation reallocates power among the three branches of government, taking authority away from the judiciary and handing it to the president.” Law professor Bruce Ackerman notes, “The president walked away with a lot more than most people thought. [The MCA] further entrenches presidential power” and allows the administration to declare even an American citizen an unlawful combatant subject to indefinite detention. “And it’s not only about these prisoners,” says Ackerman. “If Congress can strip courts of jurisdiction over cases because it fears their outcome, judicial independence is threatened.” [New York Times, 9/30/2006]

In late September 2006, a new book by Bob Woodward reveals that CIA Director Tenet and CIA counterterrorism chief Cofer Black gave National Security Adviser Rice their most urgent warning about a likely upcoming al-Qaeda attack (see July 10, 2001 and September 29, 2006). Tenet detailed this meeting to the 9/11 Commission in early 2004 (see January 28, 2004), but it was not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission’s final report later that year. According to the Washington Post, “Though the investigators had access to all the paperwork on the meeting, Black felt there were things the commissions wanted to know about and things they didn’t want to know about.” [Washington Post, 10/1/2006] The 9/11 Commissioners initially vigorously deny that they were not told about the meeting. For instance, 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick says she checked with commission staff who told her they were never told about a meeting on that date. She says, “We didn’t know about the meeting itself. I can assure you it would have been in our report if we had known to ask about it.” [Washington Post, 9/30/2006] Commissioner Tim Roemer says, “None of this was shared with us in hours of private interviews, including interviews under oath, nor do we have any paper on this. I’m deeply disturbed by this. I’m furious.” Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste says the meeting “was never mentioned to us.” Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, says the commissioners and their staff had heard nothing in their private interviews with Tenet and Black to suggest that they made such a dire presentation to Rice. “If we had heard something that drew our attention to this meeting, it would have been a huge thing.” [New York Times, 10/2/2006] However, on October 3, 2006, a transcript of Tenet’s private testimony to the 9/11 Commission is leaked to reporters and clearly shows that Tenet did warn Rice of an imminent al-Qaeda threat on July 10, 2001. Ben-Veniste, who attended the meeting along with Zelikow and other staff members, now confirms the meeting did take place and claims to recall details of it, even though he, Zelikow, and other 9/11 Commissioners had denied the existence of the meeting as recently as the day before. In the transcript, Tenet says “the system was blinking red” at the time. This statement becomes a chapter title in the 9/11 Commission’s final report but the report, which normally has detailed footnotes, does not make it clear when Tenet said it. [Washington Post, 10/3/2006] Zelikow had close ties to Rice before joining the 9/11 Commission, having co-written a book with her (see March 21, 2004), and became one of her key aides after the commission disbanded (see February 28, 2005). Zelikow does not respond to requests for comments after Tenet’s transcript surfaces. [McClatchy Newspapers, 10/2/2006; Washington Post, 10/3/2006]

Congress rewrites a two-centuries-old prohibition against the president using federal troops, or state National Guard troops acting under federal control, to act as police on domestic soil. The prohibition dates back to the Insurrection Act of 1807, which stated that the only circumstance under which the president could use troops to enforce the law against US citizens is during a time of armed revolt. The ban on using troops against citizens was strengthened by the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which forbids any government official from using military soldiers as police without specific authorization from Congress. The new law stems from the reported lawlessness that swept New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina devastated large parts of the city. The governor of Louisiana, Democrat Kathleen Blanco, refused to allow the federal government to take over the evacuation of the city, fearing that the change would amount to martial law (see 11:00 am EDT August 25, 2005). After this rejection, and the devastation wrought in Texas by Hurricane Rita just weeks later, President Bush began discussing the idea of a new law that would allow the president to impose martial law in a region for reasons other than citizen uprisings. He called it “making the Department of Defense the lead agency” in handling emergencies such as those created by Katrina and Rita, or by another terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11. (Former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo argues that the president does not need any new laws because his inherent authority as commander in chief lets him send federal troops anywhere he likes, no matter what the law says.) A year later, Congressional Republicans slip a provision into a large military appropriations bill allowing the president to deploy federal troops as police at his discretion, regardless of the possible objections of state governors. Any situation in which the president feels the “constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order” can trigger military control of a city, county, or state at the president’s behest. Bush signs the law into effect on October 17 with virtually no debate or public discussion. [Savage, 2007, pp. 316-319]

Congress, stung into action by the Bush administration’s poor response to Hurricane Katrina and particularly the ineptitude of Michael Brown, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA—see Early September 2001), passes a law saying that President Bush must nominate a replacement who has “a demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management,” and “not less than five years of executive leadership.” In a signing statement, Bush says that only he, the head of the executive branch, can decide who to appoint to offices. Therefore, he states, he is ignoring the prohibition. [Savage, 2007, pp. 239-240]

Martin Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel, says that everyting that has happened in the Middle East has been exactly the opposite of what Bush administration neoconservatives have predicted would happen. Echoing the words of conservative activist Grover Norquist (see October 2006), Indyk says, “Nobody thought going into this war that these guys would screw it up so badly, that Iraq would be taken out of the balance of power, that it would implode, and that Iran would become dominant.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 339]

Grover Norquist, a powerful conservative financier and activist, says that the idea of forcibly democratizing the Middle East—the centerpiece of neoconservative foreign policy—may not be such a good idea, if the experience of Iraq is any indication. “Everything the advocates of war said would happen hasn’t happened,” Norquist says. “And all the things the critics said would happen have happened. [The president’s neoconservative advisers] are saying: ‘Invade Iran. Then everyone will see how smart we are.’ But after you’ve lost X number of times at the roulette wheel, do you double down?” [Unger, 2007, pp. 338]

The Iraq Study Group, working to finalize its long-awaited report (see December 2006), works all of its connections to the White House to ensure that the report receives a fair hearing. No one in the study group anticipates their report will receive a warm reception from the White House. Co-chairman James Baker is playing on both his ties with the president’s father and on the fact that he secured the 2000 election victory for President Bush. “Here you have Baker coming back trying to pull the president’s chestnuts out of the fire,” a former State Department official later observes. “Not only did he help Bush out in Florida, but now he is doing the Baker-Hamilton commission. He and [Brent] Scowcroft were talking relentlessly during the policy formulation of the Iraq Study Group report. Baker was keeping the president informed the whole time. He is trying to throw him a lifeline and give him an exit.” Scowcroft, another close ally of the elder Bush, is working with his former protege, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to try to gain Bush’s attention. Rice indicates that she will help; unfortunately, she is not sincere in her assurances, as she never intervenes on Scowcroft’s behalf. [Unger, 2007, pp. 342-343]

Secretary of State Rice says that she does not recall the meeting on July 10, 2001, when CIA Director Tenet and other officials briefed her about the al-Qaeda threat (see July 10, 2001). “What I am quite certain of is that I would remember if I was told, as this account apparently says, that there was about to be an attack in the United States, and the idea that I would somehow have ignored that I find incomprehensible.” [Associated Press, 10/2/2006] Rice says she has no recollection of what she variously calls “the supposed meeting” and “the emergency so-called meeting.” [Editor & Publisher, 10/1/2006; McClatchy Newspapers, 10/2/2006] The Washington Post comments that “Rice added to the confusion… by strongly suggesting that the meeting may never have occurred at all—even though administration officials had conceded for several days that it had.” Hours after Rice’s latest denial, the State Department confirms that documents show Rice did attend such a meeting on that date. However, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack then says, “The briefing was a summary of the threat reporting from the previous weeks. There was nothing new.” The Washington Post notes that when it was pointed out to McCormack that Rice asked for the briefing to be shown to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney General Ashcroft (see July 11-17, 2001), “McCormack was unable to explain why Rice felt the briefing should be repeated if it did not include new material.” [Washington Post, 10/3/2006]

The virulently anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church (WBC—see November 27, 1955 and After) announces its intention to picket the funerals of five Amish girls murdered in a Pennsylvania schoolhouse. The organization agrees to abstain from picketing in return for an hour of airtime on talk show host Mike Gallagher’s radio program. WBC leader Shirley Phelps-Roper tells Fox News host Sean Hannity that the Amish girls “did deserve to die.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, 2012] “The Lord your God is ramping up the issues, is smiting this nation,” she says. “What he did with one stroke on that day, sending a pervert in—because America is a nation of perverts—it’s appropriate he sent a pervert in to shoot those children. The Amish people were laid to an open shame because they are a false religion.” Phelps-Roper says that the girls also deserved to die because Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell had committed “blasphemous sins” against the WBC. Rendell had criticized the church for protesting at the funerals of soldiers killed overseas (see June 2005 and After) and has signed legislation restricting protests at funerals. [New York Times, 10/6/2006; Southern Poverty Law Center, 4/2009]

The US commander for Europe, General James Jones, confirms that he made a damning quote to author Bob Woodward. In Woodward’s September, 2006 book State of Denial, Jones is quoted as saying that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had “systematically emasculated” the military’s leadership. Jones confirms to a Washington Post reporter that he indeed said those words to Woodward. According to the book, Jones, formerly the Marine Chief of Staff, called the war in Iraq a “debacle,” and added, “The Joint Chiefs have been systematically emasculated by Rumsfeld.” According to the book, Jones also told Marine General Peter Pace, who was about to become the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, “You should not be the parrot on the secretary’s shoulder.” Pace has denied that Jones made such a remark to him. Jones says that the quotes are correct—though he now says Iraq is less of a “debacle” than a “big problem”—but adds, “[H]ad I seen [the book], I probably would have suggested that the tone was more critical than I intended it to be.” Jones says: “I do not associate myself with the so-called revolt of the generals. I believe that general officers, both active and retired, have an obligation to let their views be known,” but should do so in a “helpful” way. Of his comments about Rumsfeld, he says, “We’re a team, we’re together, we have occasional family disagreements.” [Washington Post, 10/5/2006; Roberts, 2008, pp. 158, 247]

In two separate sessions, from October 6-11 and again from December 4-14, officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) interview 14 detainees newly transferred from a variety of CIA secret “black sites” to Guantanamo. The transfers followed President Bush’s acknowledgment that the CIA has maintained a number of these sites and his announced intention to have a number of the detainees sent to the Cuban facility (see September 17, 2001 and September 6, 2006). ICRC Access - The ICRC is legally bound to monitor compliance with the Geneva Conventions and to supervise the treatment of prisoners of war; previously, it had not been allowed to see the detainees, and in some cases were never informed of their detention. The ICRC officials interview each prisoner in private, with the intention of producing “a description of the treatment and material conditions of detention of the 14 during the period they were held in the CIA detention program.” Interviews - The 14 have been held for periods ranging “from 16 months to almost four and a half years.” The ICRC’s report, never intended for public consumption, will be released to the CIA several months later (see February 14, 2007) and revealed in a book in early 2009 (see March 15, 2009). Some of the detainees, concerned about the possible repercussions that may ensue from their discussions, ask the ICRC to withhold their names from some allegations, though most of the report attributes specific narratives and allegations to particular prisoners. Almost every allegation is independently corroborated by other, named detainees. 'Striking Similarity' - In 2009, author Mark Danner will write, quoting the ICRC report: “[I]ndeed, since the detainees were kept ‘in continuous solitary confinement and incommunicado detention’ throughout their time in ‘the black sites,’ and were kept strictly separated as well when they reached Guantanamo, the striking similarity in their stories, even down to small details, would seem to make fabrication extremely unlikely, if not impossible. ‘The ICRC wishes to underscore,’ as the writers tell us in the introduction, ‘that the consistency of the detailed allegations provided separately by each of the 14 adds particular weight to the information provided below.’” Topics of Report - The report covers the following areas: Main elements of the CIA detention program; Arrest and transfer; Continuous solitary confinement and incommunicado detention; Other methods of ill-treatment; Suffocation by water (the ICRC term for waterboarding); Prolonged stress standing; Beatings by use of a collar; Beating and kicking; Confinement in a box; Prolonged nudity; Sleep deprivation and use of loud music; Exposure to cold temperature/cold water; Prolonged use of handcuffs and shackles; Threats; Forced shaving; Deprivation/restricted provision of solid food; Further elements of the detention regime. Conclusion - The report concludes: “The allegations of ill-treatment of the detainees indicate that, in many cases, the ill-treatment to which they were subjected while held in the CIA program, either singly or in combination, constituted torture. In addition, many other elements of the ill-treatment, either singly or in combination, constituted cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.” Danner will write, “Such unflinching clarity, from the body legally charged with overseeing compliance with the Geneva Conventions—in which the terms ‘torture’ and ‘cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment’ are accorded a strictly defined legal meaning—couldn’t be more significant.” [New York Review of Books, 3/15/2009]

United States Geological Survey graphic showing the location of the North Korea nuclear test. The USGS notes the test as ‘seismic activity.’ [Source: United States Geological Survey]North Korea explodes a nuclear weapon in an underground test site. The test takes place in spite of repeated US (see September 11, 2006), United Nations, and other international warnings. The North Koreans claim that the test is an unmitigated success. Both Japanese and US sources report a seismic event at the time of the test, and Russia says it is “100 percent certain” a nuclear test has occurred. The US calls the test a “provocative act”; China, in an unusually strong denunciation of its ally, calls the test “brazen,” expresses its “resolute opposition” to the test, and says it “defied the universal opposition of international society.” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan calls the test “unpardonable” and notes that the region is now “entering a new, dangerous nuclear age.” Many observers believe the United Nations will attempt to impose economic sanctions on the country, and to condemn it in a Security Council resolution. “We expect the UN Security Council to take immediate actions to respond to this unprovoked act,” says White House press secretary Tony Snow. Abe, in South Korea to meet with President Roh Moo-hyun, agrees, urging the Security Council to take “undaunted” action. Abe says the test will spur Japan and the US to speed up work on a joint missile-defense system begun after a North Korean missile test in 1998. Roh says the test creates a “severe situation” that threatens stability in the region; South Korea’s military is on high alert. For its part, North Korea says the test is a “historic event that brought happiness to our military and people,” and claims the test will maintain “peace and stability” in the region. It is “a great leap forward in the building of a great prosperous, powerful socialist nation.” [BBC, 10/9/2006] A week later, the US confirms that the North Koreans have, in fact, tested a nuclear weapon of less than a kiloton. [Bloomberg, 10/16/2006]

North Korea says it may carry out further nuclear testing (see October 9, 2006), and says that any United Nations sanctions (see October 14, 2006) would be considered an act of war. The North blames the US for the threatened sanctions, and says, “If the US keeps pestering us and increases pressure, we will regard it as a declaration of war and will take a series of physical corresponding measures.” South Korea has placed its military on high alert. President Bush calls for stiff sanctions against North Korea, but insists the US has “no intentions of attacking” it. The US remains committed to diplomacy, Bush says, but “reserves all options to defend our friends in the region.” UN General Secretary Kofi Annan urges the US to hold bilateral talks with North Korea, and adds: “I would urge the North Korean authorities not to escalate the situation any further. We already have an extremely difficult situation.” Any further nuclear tests hinge on the US’s actions, says Kim Yong Nam, the deputy leader of the North Korean government. Kim says, “The issue of future nuclear tests is linked to US policy toward our country.” [Fox News, 10/11/2006]

President Bush signs the Military Commissions Act into law. [Source: White House]President Bush signs the Military Commissions Act (MCA) into law. [White House, 10/17/2006] The MCA is designed to give the president the authority to order “enemy detainees” tried by military commissions largely outside the scope of US civil and criminal procedures. The bill was requested by the Bush administration after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (see June 28, 2004) that the US could not hold prisoners indefinitely without access to the US judicial system, and that the administration’s proposal that they be tried by military tribunals was unconstitutional (see June 28, 2004). [FindLaw, 10/9/2006] It is widely reported that the MCA does not directly apply to US citizens, but to only non-citizens defined as “enemy combatants. [CBS News, 10/19/2006] However, six months later, a Bush administration lawyer will confirm that the administration believes the law does indeed apply to US citizens (see February 1, 2007). Sweeping New Executive Powers - The MCA virtually eliminates the possibility that the Supreme Court can ever again act as a check on a president’s power in the war on terrorism. Similarly, the law gives Congressional approval to many of the executive powers previously, and unilaterally, seized by the Bush administration. Former Justice Department official John Yoo celebrates the MCA, writing, “Congress… told the courts, in effect, to get out of the war on terror” (see October 19, 2006). [Savage, 2007, pp. 319, 322]'Abandoning' Core 'Principles' - The bill passed the Senate on a 65-34 vote, and the House by a 250-170 vote. The floor debate was often impassioned and highly partisan; House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) called Democrats who opposed the bill “dangerous,” and Senate Judiciary Committee member Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said this bill showed that the US is losing its “moral compass.” Leahy asked during the debate, “Why would we allow the terrorists to win by doing to ourselves what they could never do, and abandon the principles for which so many Americans today and through our history have fought and sacrificed?” Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) had said he would vote against it because it is “patently unconstitutional on its face,” but then voted for it, saying he believes the courts will eventually “clean it up.” Specter’s attempt to amend the bill to provide habeas corpus rights for enemy combatants was defeated, as were four Democratic amendments. Republicans have openly used the debate over the MCA as election-year fodder, with House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) saying after the vote that “House Democrats have voted to protect the rights of terrorists,” and Boehner decrying “the Democrats’ irrational opposition to strong national security policies.” Democrats such as Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) say they will not fight back at such a level. “There will be 30-second attack ads and negative mail pieces, and we will be called everything from cut-and-run quitters to Defeatocrats, to people who care more about the rights of terrorists than the protection of Americans,” Obama says. “While I know all of this, I’m still disappointed, and I’m still ashamed, because what we’re doing here today—a debate over the fundamental human rights of the accused—should be bigger than politics.” [Washington Post, 10/19/2006] After winning the vote, Hastert accused Democrats who opposed the bill of “putting their liberal agenda ahead of the security of America.” Hastert said the Democrats “would gingerly pamper the terrorists who plan to destroy innocent Americans’ lives” and create “new rights for terrorists.” [New York Times, 10/19/2006]Enemy Combatants - The MCA applies only to “enemy combatants.” Specifically, the law defines an “unlawful enemy combatant” as a person “who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents,” and who is not a lawful combatant. Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch says the definition far exceeds the traditionally accepted definition of combatant as someone who directly participates in hostilities. But under the MCA, someone who provides “material support” for terrorists—whether that be in the form of financial contributions or sweeping the floors at a terrorist camp—can be so defined. Worse, the label can be applied without recourse by either Bush or the secretary of defense, after a “competent tribunal” makes the determination. The MCA provides no guidelines as to what criteria these tribunals should use. Taken literally, the MCA gives virtually unrestricted power to the tribunals to apply the label as requested by the president or the secretary. Mariner believes the definition is both “blatantly unconstitutional” and a direct contradiction of centuries of Supreme Court decisions that define basic judicial rights. [FindLaw, 10/9/2006] Under this definition, the president can imprison, without charge or trial, any US citizen accused of donating money to a Middle East charity that the government believes is linked to terrorist activity. Citizens associated with “fringe” groups such as the left-wing Black Panthers or right-wing militias can be incarcerated without trial or charge. Citizens accused of helping domestic terrorists can be so imprisoned. Law professor Bruce Ackerman calls the MCA “a massive Congressional expansion of the class of enemy combatants,” and warns that the law may “haunt all of us on the morning after the next terrorist attack” by enabling a round of mass detentions similar to the roundup of Japanese-American citizens during World War II. [Savage, 2007, pp. 322]Military Commissions - The MCA mandates that enemy combatants are to be tried by military commissions, labeled “regularly constituted courts that afford all the necessary ‘judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples’ for purposes of common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.” The commissions must have a minimum of five commissioned military officers and a military judge; if death is a possible penalty, the commissions must have at least 12 officers. The defendant’s guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt; convictions require a two-thirds vote. Sentences of beyond 10 years require a three-quarters vote, and death penalties must be unanimously voted for. Defendants may either represent themselves or by military or civilian counsel. The court procedures themselves, although based on standard courts-martial proceedings, are fluid, and can be set or changed as the secretary of defense sees fit. Statements obtained through methods defined as torture are inadmissible, but statements take by coercion and “cruel treatment” can be admitted. The MCA sets the passage of the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA—see December 15, 2005) as a benchmark—statements obtained before the December 30, 2005 enactment of that law can be used, even if the defendant was “coerced,” if a judge finds the statement “reasonable and possessing sufficient probative value.” Statements after that date must have been taken during interrogations that fall under the DTA guidelines. Defendants have the right to examine and respond to evidence seen by the commission, a provision originally opposed by the administration. However, if the evidence is classified, an unclassified summary of that material is acceptable, and classified exculpatory evidence can be denied in lieu of what the MCA calls “acceptable substitutes.” Hearsay evidence is admissible, as is evidence obtained without search warrants. Generally, defendants will not be allowed to inquire into the classified “sources, methods, or activities” surrounding evidence against them. Some human rights activists worry that evidence obtained through torture can be admitted, and the fact that it was obtained by torture, if that detail is classified, will not be presented to the court or preclude the evidence from being used. Public access to the commissions will be quite limited. Many experts claim these commissions are illegal both by US constitutional law and international law. [FindLaw, 10/9/2006]Secret Courts - The military tribunals can be partially or completely closed to public scrutiny if the presiding judge deems such an action necessary to national security. The government can convey such concerns to the judge without the knowledge of the defense. The judge can exclude the accused from the trial if he deems it necessary for safety or if he decides the defendant is “disruptive.” Evidence can be presented in secret, without the knowledge of the defense and without giving the defense a chance to examine that evidence, if the judge finds that evidence “reliable.” And during the trial, the prosecution can at any time assert a “national security privilege” that would stop “the examination of any witness” if that witness shows signs of discussing sensitive security matters. This provision can easily be used to exclude any potential defense witness who might “breach national security” with their testimony. Author and investigative reporter Robert Parry writes, “In effect, what the new law appears to do is to create a parallel ‘star chamber’ system for the prosecution, imprisonment, and elimination of enemies of the state, whether those enemies are foreign or domestic.” [Consortium News, 10/19/2006]Appeals - Guilty verdicts are automatically appealed to a Court of Military Commission Review, consisting of three appellate military justices. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals has extremely limited authority of review of the commissions; even its authority to judge whether a decision is consistent with the Constitution is limited “to the extent [that the Constitution is] applicable.” Types of Crimes - Twenty-eight specific crimes fall under the rubric of the military commissions, including conspiracy (not a traditional war crime), murder of protected persons, murder in violation of the bill of war, hostage-taking, torture, cruel or inhuman treatment, mutilation or maiming, rape, sexual abuse or assault, hijacking, terrorism, providing material support for terrorism, and spying. [FindLaw, 10/9/2006]CIA Abuses - The MCA, responding to the recent Supreme Court decision of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (see June 30, 2006) that found the CIA’s secret detention program and abusive interrogation practices illegal, redefines and amends the law to make all but the most pernicious interrogation practices, even those defined as torture by the War Crimes Act and the Geneva Conventions, legal. The MCA actually rules that the Geneva Conventions are all but unenforceable in US courts. It also provides retroactive protection under the law to all actions as far back as November 1997. Under the MCA, practices such as waterboarding, stress positioning, and sleep deprivation cannot be construed as torture. [FindLaw, 10/9/2006] The MCA even states that rape as part of interrogations cannot be construed as torture unless the intent of the rapist to torture his victim can be proven, a standard rejected by international law. The MCA provides such a narrow definition of coercion and sexual abuse that most of the crimes perpetrated at Abu Ghraib are now legal. [Jurist, 10/4/2006] Although the MCA seems to cover detainee abuse for all US agencies, including the CIA, Bush says during the signing of the bill, “This bill will allow the Central Intelligence Agency to continue its program for questioning key terrorist leaders and operatives.” International law expert Scott Horton will note, “The administration wanted these prohibitions on the military and not on the CIA, but it did not work out that way.” Apparently Bush intends to construe the law to exempt the CIA from its restrictions, such as they are, on torture and abuse of prisoners. [Salon, 5/22/2007]No Habeas Corpus Rights - Under the MCA, enemy combatants no longer have the right to file suit under the habeas corpus provision of US law. This means that they cannot challenge the legality of their detention, or raise claims of torture and mistreatment. Even detainees who have been released can never file suit to seek redress for their treatment while in US captivity. [FindLaw, 10/25/2006]Retroactive Immunity - The administration added a provision to the MCA that rewrote the War Crimes Act retroactively to November 26, 1997, making any offenses considered war crimes before the MCA is adopted no longer punishable under US law. Former Nixon White House counsel John Dean will write in 2007 that the only reason he can fathom for the change is to protect administration officials—perhaps including President Bush himself—from any future prosecutions as war criminals. Dean will note that if the administration actually believes in the inherent and indisputable powers of the presidency, as it has long averred, then it would not worry about any such criminal liability. [Dean, 2007, pp. 239-240]

The chart presented during the CENTCOM briefing. [Source: New York Times]A briefing by the US Central Command (CENTCOM) says that Iraq is sliding towards a complete breakdown of order. The briefing features a chart used by the military as, in the words of New York Times reporter Michael Gordon, “a barometer of civil conflict.” Gordon describes the slide as providing “a rare glimpse into how the military command that oversees the war is trying to track its trajectory, particularly in terms of sectarian fighting.” The briefing was prepared by CENTCOM’s intelligence directorate, overseen by Brigadier General John Custer. The slide contains a color-coded bar chart titled “Index of Civil Conflict,” which tracks the sharp rise in sectarian violence since the bombing of a Shi’ite shrine in February (see February 22, 2006), and documents a subsequent rise in violence despite US efforts to contain conflicts in and around Baghdad. Gordon describes the chart as tracking, among other factors, “the ineffectual Iraqi police and the dwindling influence of moderate religious and political figures,” and not so much more traditional factors like “the enemy’s fighting strength and the control of territory.” The chart shows Iraq moving quickly away from “peace,” the ideal condition on the far left of the chart, to a point labeled “chaos” on the right side. Gordon notes, “As depicted in the command’s chart, the needle has been moving steadily toward the far right of the chart.” A CENTCOM official says, “Ever since the February attack on the Shiite mosque in Samarra, it has been closer to the chaos side than the peace side.” [New York Times, 11/1/2006]

John Yoo, a former Justice Department official, celebrates the passage of the Military Commissions Act (see October 17, 2006). Yoo writes that Congress has ordered “the courts, in effect, to get out of the war on terror.” The bill is not so much a victory for the presidency, Yoo writes, as it is a loss for the judiciary, a “stinging rebuke to the Supreme Court. It strips the courts of jurisdiction to hear any habeas corpus claim filed by any alien enemy combatant anywhere in the world.” It supersedes the Court’s ruling in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (see June 30, 2006), which Yoo calls “an unprecedented attempt by the court to rewrite the law of war and intrude into war policy… [a] stunning power grab.” Now, he writes: “Congress and the president did not take the court’s power grab lying down. They told the courts, in effect, to get out of the war on terror, stripped them of habeas jurisdiction over alien enemy combatants, and said there was nothing wrong with the military commissions. It is the first time since the New Deal that Congress had so completely divested the courts of power over a category of cases. It is also the first time since the Civil War that Congress saw fit to narrow the court’s habeas powers in wartime because it disagreed with its decisions. The law goes farther. It restores to the president command over the management of the war on terror. It directly reverses Hamdan by making clear that the courts cannot take up the Geneva Conventions. Except for some clearly defined war crimes, whose prosecution would also be up to executive discretion, it leaves interpretation and enforcement of the treaties up to the president. It even forbids courts from relying on foreign or international legal decisions in any decisions involving military commissions.” Yoo had previously authored numerous torture memos (see October 4, 2001, November 6-10, 2001, November 20, 2001, December 21, 2001, December 28, 2001, January 9, 2002, January 11, 2002, January 14, 2002, January 22, 2002, January 24-26, 2002, March 13, 2002, July 22, 2002, August 1, 2002, August 1, 2002, and March 14, 2003) and opinions expanding the power of the president (see September 21, 2001, September 25, 2001, September 25, 2001, October 23, 2001, October 23, 2001, and June 27, 2002). [Wall Street Journal, 10/19/2006]

Exercising its new authority under the just-signed Military Commissions Act (MCA—see October 17, 2006), the Bush administration notifies the US District Court in Washington that it no longer has jurisdiction to consider 196 habeas corpus petitions filed by Guantanamo detainees. Many of these petitions cover multiple detainees. According to the MCA, “no court, justice, or judge” can consider those petitions or other actions related to treatment or imprisonment filed by anyone designated as an enemy combatant, now or in the future. The MCA is already being challenged as unconstitutional by several lawyers representing Guantanamo detainees. The MCA goes directly against two recent Supreme Court cases, Rasul v. Bush (see June 28, 2004) and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (see June 30, 2006), which provide detainees with habeas corpus and other fundamental legal rights. Many Congressional members and legal experts say that the anti-habeas provisions of the MCA are unconstitutional. For instance, Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) notes that the Constitution says the right of any prisoner to challenge detention “shall not be suspended” except in cases of “rebellion or invasion.” [Washington Post, 10/20/2006] Law professor Joseph Margulies, who is involved in the detainee cases, says the administration’s persistence on the issue “demonstrates how difficult it is for the courts to enforce [the clause] in the face of a resolute executive branch that is bound and determined to resist it.” Vincent Warren of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents many of the detainees, expects the legal challenges to the law will eventually wind up before the Supreme Court. [Washington Post, 10/20/2006]

In an abrupt reversal, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il apologizes for his country’s nuclear test (see October 9, 2006). He reportedly tells a Chinese delegation that he regrets the test, denies any plans for further tests (see October 11, 2006), and says he is willing for North Korea to resume its participation in international nuclear negotiations if the US agrees not to “financially isolate” his country. For their part, US State Department officials say they doubt Kim made any such statements. But the US is willing to rejoin negotiations. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says, “The Chinese are emphasizing the need for six-party talks to begin again and for the North to re-engage in the talks.” North Korea “urged us to be open to returning to those talks without preconditions, which for us is not difficult.” [MSNBC, 10/20/2006]

After an investigation into whether an Israeli lobbying organization improperly tried to influence House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) into naming Jane Harman (D-CA) as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee (see Summer 2005 and October 2005) becomes public knowledge, Harman calls the allegations “irresponsible, laughable, and scurrilous.” Former Solicitor General Theodore Olson, a Republican just hired by Harman to represent her in the matter, tells Time reporter Timothy Burger: “Congresswoman Harman has asked me to follow up on calls you’ve had. She is not aware of any such investigation, does not believe that it is occurring, and wanted to make sure that you and your editors knew that as far as she knows, that’s not true.… No one from the Justice Department has contacted her.” Burger notes that “[i]t is not, however, a given that Harman would know that she is under investigation.” Olson confirms that Harman hired him because even though she doesn’t believe the media reports of the investigation, she takes the possibility seriously. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), allegedly Harman’s partner in the scheme, also denies any wrongdoing, and says it takes no position on the question of who wins the committee assignment, which was perceived to be a contest between Harman and fellow committee member Alcee Hastings (D-FL). AIPAC spokesman Patrick Dorton says: “Both Congressman Hastings and Congresswoman Harman are strong leaders on issues of importance to the pro-Israel community and would be exemplary Democratic leaders for the House intelligence committee. AIPAC would never engage in a quid pro quo in relation to a federal investigation or any federal matter and the notion that it would do so is preposterous. AIPAC is not aware that the Justice Department is looking into issues involving the intelligence committee, and has not been asked any questions or contacted by the government on this matter, but certainly would cooperate with any inquiry.” Dorton adds that AIPAC has previously been assured that the organization and its current employees are not being investigated. [Time, 10/20/2006]

A long shot of Firdos Square during the statue toppling process. A small knot of onlookers can be seen surrounding the statue at the far end of the area; most of the square is empty. Three US tanks can be seen stationed around the square. [Source: Ian Masters]A study by the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media is presented at the October 2006 conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. The study features an in-depth examination of the iconic toppling of the Firdos Square statue of Saddam Hussein (see April 9, 2003, April 9, 2003, and April 10, 2003). The study notes that “wide-angle shots show clearly that the square was never close to being a quarter full [and] never had more than a few hundred people in it (many of them reporters).” But after the initial two-hour live broadcast of the statue’s fall, US broadcasters chose to repeat tightly focused shots that, in author Frank Rich’s words, “conjured up a feverish popular uprising matching the administration’s prewar promise that Americans would see liberated Iraqis celebrating in the streets” (see November 18-19, 2001, 2002-2003, August 3, 2002, and September 9, 2002). According to the study, some version of the statue-toppling footage played every 4.4 minutes on Fox News between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. the day of the statue’s fall, and every seven minutes on CNN. [Rich, 2006, pp. 83-84; Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, 10/22/2006]

In an interview with WDAY’s Scott Heinen, Vice President Dick Cheney says it was a “no-brainer for me” to authorize waterboarding of suspected terrorists (see April 2002 and After and Summer 2003). Cheney says that since waterboarding and other brutal methods are not torture, as he defines the term (see Mid-March 2002), the entire issue is not really an issue. “We don’t torture,” he says. “That’s not what we’re involved in. We live up to our obligations in international treaties that we’re party to, and so forth. But the fact is, you can have a fairly robust interrogation program without torture, and we need to be able to do that.” [Savage, 2007, pp. 154-155; Financial Times, 10/26/2008] After Cheney’s statement causes a welter of criticism among lawmakers and media figures, the White House says Cheney was not talking about waterboarding, and insists that the US does not torture. Cheney calls reporters to bolster the denial. “I did not talk about specific techniques and won’t,” he says. “I didn’t say anything about waterboarding.… He [Heinen] didn’t even use that phrase.” Human Rights Watch says Cheney’s remarks are “the Bush administration’s first clear endorsement” of waterboarding. [Associated Press, 10/28/2006]

Several days before US midterm elections, President Bush is asked at a press conference if the US is winning the war on terror. He replies: “Absolutely, we’re winning. Al-Qaeda is on the run.” He adds: “We’re winning, and we will win, unless we leave before the job is done. And the crucial battle right now is Iraq.” [White House, 10/25/2006]

Vice President Dick Cheney says foreign terrorists in Iraq are launching a spate of attacks in order to influence the upcoming US midterm elections—in essence, accusing terrorists of trying to sway Americans to vote for Democrats. Al-Qaeda and other terror groups active in Iraq are trying to “break the will of the American people.” He continues, “They’re very sensitive to the fact that we’ve got an election scheduled.” He goes on to claim that terror attacks in Iraq are being scheduled to coincide with US election events and to garner maximum media coverage to impact the elections. He provides no evidence for this. October saw one of the highest death tolls for US forces since the invasion of March 2003. Republicans fear that bad news from Iraq will cost them seats in the US Congress. Pentagon spokesman Eric Ruff echoes Cheney’s statements, saying that Islamist militants are trying to “increase opposition to the war and have an influence against the president.” White House officials add that the US media is deliberately focusing on the “bad” news of casualties, carnage, and terrorist attacks, and failing to cover the “good” news coming out of the occupation. The White House and the Pentagon are launching a new propaganda effort to use “new media” outlets such as blogs to spread their message and counter what they say is a sophisticated propaganda effort by Islamists to manipulate the news and affect the US elections. [BBC, 10/31/2006]

Army Times logo. [Source: Army Times / Grantham University]An Army Times editorial says that to tell the “hard bruising truth” of the war in Iraq is to conclude that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld must resign. The editorial observes, “One rosy reassurance after another has been handed down by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and… Rumsfeld: ‘mission accomplished’ (see May 1, 2003 and April 30, 2008), the insurgency is ‘in its last throes” (see Summer 2005), and ‘back off,’ we know what we’re doing (see May 2004), are a few choice examples.” Some retired and active generals and military leaders are now beginning to speak out (see April 13-14, 2006, April 14-16, 2006, April 16, 2006, and October 5, 2006). In August, US CENTCOM commander General John Abizaid predicted the possibility of all-out civil war in Iraq (see August 3, 2006). And in mid-October, the New York Times reported on a confidential CENTCOM briefing that called the situation in Iraq “critical,” and sliding towards “chaos” (see October 18, 2006). The Army Times editorial observes that “despite the best [US] efforts… the problem of molding a viciously sectarian population into anything resembling a force for national unity has become a losing proposition.” Bush has vowed to stick by Rumsfeld for the remainder of his second term. The Army Times calls that decision “a mistake.” It explains: “It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation’s current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.… Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt.… Donald Rumsfeld must go.” [Army Times, 11/6/2006] The Department of Defense responds to an advance copy of the Army Times editorial a day before its official publication. The editorial is “inaccurate and misleading,” and took Abizaid’s words “out of context.” The Pentagon claims that Rumsfeld has always presented what it calls a “balanced” picture of Iraq, and has never engaged in “rosy scenarios” to mislead the public (see April 11, 2003, April 12, 2003, Summer 2005, June 25, 2005, November 1, 2005, February 17, 2006, and April 18, 2006). It goes on to call the editorial little more than a rehash of old criticisms, and chides the writer(s) for “insulting military commanders” and “attack[ing]” Rumsfeld. [US Department of Defense, 11/5/2006] Rumsfeld resigns on the same day as the editorial appears (see November 6-December 18, 2006).

Slate’s war reporter, Fred Kaplan, publishes an online editorial in response to the morning’s Army Times editorial calling for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (see November 6, 2006). Kaplan’s editorial is published just hours before Rumsfeld resigns (see November 6-December 18, 2006). Kaplan calls the editorial “fairly astonishing.” He explains the use of the word “fairly” by noting that the Army Times, and its brethren Military Times Media Group publications Navy Times, Air Force Times, and Marine Corps Times (all of which publish the Army Times editorial) are privately owned and published by the Gannett Corporation. Had the official Defense Department publication Stars & Stripes published the editorial, Kaplan writes, “it would be prelude to insurrection.” Kaplan notes that the Military Times audience is almost all military personnel; and the reporters and editors “are nearly all veterans with close ties to the senior officer corps.” The publications are, Kaplan writes, “essentially trade papers, covering issues from the perspective of the men and women of the armed forces.” The Military Times publications “would not run an editorial like the one in today’s editions unless they knew that it reflected a broad and deep consensus among high-ranking, active-duty officers across the military establishment,” he writes: “That’s the remarkable thing about the editorial—that the military’s disaffection from the war, and from its civilian leadership, has grown so widespread that even the editors of the Military Times newspapers fear no backlash from amplifying the chorus.” Kaplan adds his own voice to the Military Times’s call for Rumsfeld’s firing, writing: “Rumsfeld chose the strategy for this war. As the Defense Department’s chief civilian authority, he had every right to overrule his military commanders and impose his own notion of how to fight the war. But once his way proved disastrous, he should have been held accountable. The only person who can hold him accountable is the president. Most presidents fire a Cabinet officer whose judgment is no longer deserving of trust.” [Slate, 11/6/2006]

Rumsfeld leaving the Defense Department. [Source: Boston Globe]Donald Rumsfeld resigns as US defense secretary. On November 6, he writes a letter telling President Bush of his resignation. Bush reads the letter the next day, which is also the date for midterm elections in the US, in which the Democratic Party wins majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives. Bush publicly announces the resignation the next day. No explanation is given for the delay in making the announcement. [Reuters, 8/15/2007]Replaced by Gates - Rumsfeld is formally replaced by Robert Gates on December 18, 2006. According to a retired general who worked closely with the first Bush administration, the Gates nomination means that George H.W. Bush, his close political advisers—Brent Scowcroft, James Baker—and the current President Bush are saying that “winning the 2008 election is more important than any individual. The issue for them is how to preserve the Republican agenda. The Old Guard wants to isolate Cheney and give their girl, Condoleezza Rice, a chance to perform.” It takes Scowcroft, Baker, and the elder Bush working together to oppose Cheney, the general says. “One guy can’t do it.” Other sources close to the Bush family say that the choice of Gates to replace Rumsfeld is more complex than the general describes, and any “victory” by the “Old Guard” may be illusory. A former senior intelligence official asks rhetorically: “A week before the election, the Republicans were saying that a Democratic victory was the seed of American retreat, and now Bush and Cheney are going to change their national security policies? Cheney knew this was coming. Dropping Rummy after the election looked like a conciliatory move—‘You’re right, Democrats. We got a new guy and we’re looking at all the options. Nothing is ruled out.’” In reality, the former official says, Gates is being brought in to give the White House the credibility it needs in continuing its policies towards Iran and Iraq. New Approach towards Iran? - Gates also has more credibility with Congress than Rumsfeld, a valuable asset if Gates needs to tell Congress that Iran’s nuclear program poses an imminent threat. “He’s not the guy who told us there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and he’ll be taken seriously by Congress.” Joseph Cirincione, a national security director for the Center for American Progress, warns: “Gates will be in favor of talking to Iran and listening to the advice of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but the neoconservatives are still there [in the White House] and still believe that chaos would be a small price for getting rid of the threat. The danger is that Gates could be the new Colin Powell—the one who opposes the policy but ends up briefing the Congress and publicly supporting it.” [New Yorker, 11/27/2006]

The CIA acknowledges that it has operated under the rubric of two secret Bush administration documents that authorized it to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects overseas. Since 2004, the agency has refused to either confirm or deny the existence of the documents, and has argued in court that to make such an acknowledgement would jeopardize national security. The American Civil Liberties Union, which has fought the CIA in court over the documents, says in a statement by its executive director, Anthony Romero: “The CIA’s sudden reversal on these secret directives is yet more evidence that the Bush administration is misusing claims of national security to avoid public scrutiny. Confusion about whether such a presidential order existed certainly led to the torture and abuse scandal that embarrassed America. With a new Congress and renewed subpoena power, we now need to look up the chain of command.” One of the documents is a secret executive order signed by President Bush authorizing the CIA to set up “black site” detention facilities overseas (see September 17, 2001), and the other is a Justice Department legal analysis specifying interrogation methods that CIA interrogators could use against top al-Qaeda suspects. In legal papers previously filed in court, the CIA claimed that national security would be gravely injured if the CIA were compelled to admit or deny even an “interest” in interrogating detainees. Today, however, the agency acknowledges the existence of the two documents. It continues to withhold the documents themselves; their contents remain unknown to the public. The ACLU’s Jameel Jaffer says: “We intend to press for the release of both of these documents. If President Bush and the Justice Department authorized the CIA to torture its prisoners, the public has a right to know.” [American Civil Liberties Union, 11/14/2006]

The Lewis Libby defense team argues in a court filing that there was no such thing as an orchestrated plot to expose Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA official, and writes that Libby, a former White House official who told at least two reporters that Plame Wilson was a CIA official (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, 2:24 p.m. July 12, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003), had no reason to lie during the investigation of the leak (see October 14, 2003, November 26, 2003, March 5, 2004, and March 24, 2004). Libby’s lawyers want to present a wide-ranging defense concerning Libby’s duties and actions at the White House, while special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, the US Attorney prosecuting the case, wants to stay narrowly focused on evidence that Libby lied under oath to the FBI and to a grand jury. “It is doubtful that anyone committed an ‘underlying crime’ here,” Libby’s lawyers write. “The government’s investigation began as an effort to discover which government officials had ‘leaked’ Ms. Wilson’s affiliation with the CIA to Mr. Novak” (see July 14, 2003). The Libby lawyers base their argument on the fact that former State Department official Richard Armitage leaked Plame Wilson’s identity to a reporter before Libby did (see June 13, 2003). “Members of the jury will have heard for years that Mr. Libby leaked classified information about Valerie Wilson’s affiliation with the CIA, due to inaccurate reports in the press,” the defense attorneys write. “Indeed, the government has contributed to the likely misimpressions that potential jurors will have about this case.” In previous filings, Fitzgerald has argued that the upcoming trial should not be a forum to debate the leak itself or question why Libby was charged and others were not. [Associated Press, 11/14/2006]

Vice President Dick Cheney asks a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought against him by a former CIA official, Valerie Plame Wilson, who says the White House leaked her identity to the press (see July 13, 2006). He is joined in his request for dismissal by his former chief of staff, Lewis Libby, who is also named in the lawsuit. According to a report by the Associated Press, Cheney’s lawyers say the lawsuit “invented constitutional rights, intruded on national security discussions, and came two years after the statute of limitations had expired.” Cheney’s lawyers also say Plame Wilson has no grounds to bring the lawsuit, and even if she does, Cheney has “qualified immunity” from civil suits by his position as a senior member of the executive branch, and is “absolutely immune from suits for civil damages.” Cheney’s lawyers write in their brief: “Plaintiffs invite the judicial branch to permit intrusive discovery into those communications and to discern which among them might be, as a matter of tort law, wrongful and which not.… Such an inquiry cannot be squared with basic separation of powers principals.” [Associated Press, 11/14/2006; MSNBC, 11/14/2006; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 11/14/2006 ; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 11/14/2006 ; US District Court for the District of Columbia, 11/14/2006 ]

Thomas Friedman, the New York Times foreign affairs columnist who has recently been made a figure of fun for predicting resolution in Iraq “within six months” for the last three years (see May 6-11, 2006), writes that Iraq will be resolved one way or another within “10 months.” Friedman expands on his new prediction, saying Iraq “is so broken it can’t even have a proper civil war. There are so many people killing so many other people for so many different reasons—religion, crime, politics—that all the proposals for how to settle this problem seem laughable.… Iraq is in so many little pieces now, divided among warlords, foreign terrorists, gangs, militias, parties, the police, and the army, that nobody seems able to deliver anybody. Iraq has entered a stage beyond civil war—it’s gone from breaking apart to breaking down. This is not the Arab Yugoslavia anymore. It’s Hobbes’s jungle. Given this, we need to face our real choices in Iraq, which are: 10 months or 10 years. Either we just get out of Iraq in a phased withdrawal over 10 months, and try to stabilize it some other way, or we accept the fact that the only way it will not be a failed state is if we start over and rebuild it from the ground up, which would take 10 years. This would require reinvading Iraq, with at least 150,000 more troops, crushing the Sunni and Shi’ite militias, controlling borders, and building Iraq’s institutions and political culture from scratch. Anyone who tells you that we can just train a few more Iraqi troops and police officers and then slip out in two or three years is either lying or a fool. The minute we would leave, Iraq would collapse. There is nothing we can do by the end of the Bush presidency that would produce a self-sustaining stable Iraq—and ‘self-sustaining’ is the key metric.” Friedman concludes: “This has left us with two impossible choices. If we’re not ready to do what is necessary to crush the dark forces in Iraq and properly rebuild it, then we need to leave—because to just keep stumbling along as we have been makes no sense. It will only mean throwing more good lives after good lives into a deeper and deeper hole filled with more and more broken pieces.” [New York Times, 11/29/2006] Four months ago, Friedman had written that the only way to resolve Iraq was to stop trying to rebuild the country and just find a way to exit gracefully (see August 4, 2006).

Thomas McInerney. [Source: New York Times]Several military analysts who serve as part of the Pentagon’s propaganda campaign to push the Iraq war and occupation (see April 20, 2008 and Early 2002 and Beyond) emphasize their willingness to cooperate with the program even as they come to believe that they are being manipulated and deceived. NBC analyst Kenneth Allard, who has taught information warfare at the National Defense University, will later say that he has discerned an ever-widening gap between what he and his fellow analysts are being told and what subsequent investigation and book analyses will later reveal. Allard will say, “Night and day, I felt we’d been hosed.” Yet Allard continues to repeat Pentagon talking points on NBC. Other analysts feel fewer qualms. Thomas McInerney, a retired Air Force general and Fox News analyst, writes to the Pentagon regarding the talking points they have given him: “Good work. We will use it.” [New York Times, 4/20/2008]

A study conducted for the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency finds that close American allies want the Bush administration to understand that “a greater US readiness to engage on nuclear disarmament issues would pay off in increased support from other third parties in pursuing US nonproliferation issues.” Many US allies, such as Canada, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, and others, are deeply unhappy with the US’s recent refusal to follow the restrictions of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (see Late May 2005). A similar study for Sandia National Laboratories, a US nuclear research facility, finds that while other nations are not any more likely to develop their own nuclear programs because of the US’s nuclear posture, the US has lost tremendous credibility in pursuing nonproliferation efforts among other states because of its perceived hypocrisy. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 278-279]

The Bush administration imposes what reporter and author Charlie Savage will later call “unprecedented controls” on scientists working with the US Geological Survey (USGS), an agency that studies environmental issues such as global warming and endangered species. Now, USGS scientists must submit research papers and prepared speeches to White House officials for approval prior to dissemination. The rules also require the scientists to let the public affairs office know about “findings or data that may be especially newsworthy, have an impact on government policy, or contradict previous public understanding to ensure that proper officials are notified and that communication strategies are developed.” USGS scientists say that the restrictions mean that government officials are monitoring and censoring their work. “The explanation was that this was intended to ensure the highest possible quality research,” says Jim Estes, a marine biologist who has worked for USGS since the 1970s. “But to me it feels like they’re doing this to keep us under their thumbs.” [Savage, 2007, pp. 106-107]

Congress passes a bill that restates an existing ban on government officials opening citizens’ first-class mail without a warrant. The single exception is if authorities suspect a letter or package of containing a bomb. President Bush issues a signing statement asserting the right of the executive branch to open mail without a warrant when “specifically authorized by law for foreign intelligence collection.” The statement, if interpreted as legally meaningful, renders Congress’s law impotent, since during the entire warrantless wiretapping controversy the administration has asserted it is authorized by the “law” of the president’s inherent power as commander in chief to intercept phone calls without a judge’s approval, and this power would also apply to opening mail. [Savage, 2007, pp. 238]

Congress passes a law prohibiting the US from transferring nuclear technology to India if that nation violates international nonproliferation guidelines. President Bush signs the law, then issues a signing statement saying that since only he has the right to determine US foreign policy, he views the legal ban as nothing more than “advisory.” [Savage, 2007, pp. 239]

The cover of the Review, depicting a Native American displaying a scalp. [Source: Dartmouth Review via Huffington Post]The Dartmouth Review, a conservative weekly student newspaper funded by off-campus right-wing sources (see 1980), publishes its latest edition; the cover depicts a Native American as what Indian Country Today later describes as a “crazed ‘savage’ holding up a scalp.” The cover headline: “The Natives Are Getting Restless”; the story ridicules Native American students for protesting a recent spate of anti-Native incidents on campus. Dartmouth College was founded in 1769 as a school for Native Americans, and has a long history of supporting Native American causes; in light of its history, the local and national Native American communities have been dismayed in recent years by what they call the anti-Indian sentiments espoused by the Review and other Dartmouth students. The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) joins with the student organization Native Americans at Dartmouth (NAD) to ask college administrators to address the recent string of “culturally insensitive, biased, and racist” events that they say have created a hostile campus environment at the school. “Colleges and universities are places where diversity and tolerance should foster productive, inclusive, and thriving intellectual communities,” says NCAI President Joe Garcia. “When cartoonization, mockery, and insensitivity of Native peoples, cultures, and traditions persist on college campuses, Native students are at a unique disadvantage in that intellectual community. NCAI joins NAD, [Dartmouth] President James Wright, and the broader Dartmouth community in condemning the recent series of biased incidents at the college, and stands with NAD in its efforts at combating bias in your community.” In recent months, Review staffers and Dartmouth students have orchestrated a number of events that Native Americans call racist and intolerant, including the distribution of homecoming shirts depicting a knight performing a sex act on an American Indian caricature, and the physical disruption by fraternity pledges of an American Indian drumming circle. The publication of the Review with its offensive cover sends the Native American community, and its supporters, into new levels of outrage, with Indian Country Today noting that the illustration of the “savage” has often been used by anti-Native American organizations. Over 500 students, faculty, and administrators take part in a demonstration supporting the Native American community. In response, the Review editor, Daniel Linsalata, calls the cover “hyperbolic” and “tongue-in-cheek,” and says that while he “regret[s]” that the cover “may have” offended some, he stands behind “the editorial content” of the edition. The remainder of his response attacks NAD, and argues that the cover is appropriate to the discussion: “The accusation that this cover was maliciously designed as a wantonly racist attack on Native Americans is patently false,” he says. Wright issues a statement apologizing for the racial slur. Four days after Linsalata’s response, editors Nicholas Desai and Emily Ghods-Esfahani write that the cover was “a mistake” that “distracted attention from the serious journalism the Dartmouth Review has been publishing.” [Dartmouth Review, 12/2/2006; Dartmouth Review, 12/6/2006; Indian Country Today, 12/15/2006]

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